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Historical Fiction September 2019
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| Meet Me in Monaco: A Novel of Grace Kelly's Royal Wedding by Hazel Gaynor and Heather WebbWhat it's about: American actress Grace Kelly's romance with and marriage to Prince Rainer III of Monaco.
As seen through the eyes of: Provençal parfumeur Sophie Duval, who becomes Kelly's confidante, and British press photographer James Henderson, with whom Sophie falls in love.
For fans of: royal weddings, old Hollywood glamour, atmospheric settings, and bittersweet love stories. |
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| Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee KoeWhat it's about: In 1928, the lives of Hollywood icon Marlene Dietrich, Chinese American actress Anna May Wong, and German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl briefly intersect when Alfred Eisenstaedt photographs them together at a party.
Why you might like it: This debut traces the ripple effects of this chance encounter over a span of decades, following these ambitious women as well as several well-drawn supporting characters.
You might also like: Francine Prose's Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932, another character-driven historical novel inspired by a vintage photograph. |
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| Costalegre by Courtney MaumWhat it is: 15-year-old Lara's recounting of her heiress mother's scheme to smuggle a group of Surrealist artists out of Nazi Germany and install them at Mexico's posh Costalegre resort.
Inspired by: the complicated mother-daughter relationship of American socialite Peggy and painter Pegeen Guggenheim.
Why you might like it: Structured as a series of diary entries, this novel juxtaposes keen observations of Costalegre's bohemian guests with a lonely girl's quest to become an artist in her own right. |
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The Last Year of the War
by Susan Meissner
What it's about: After her father is accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, German American teen Elise and her family are sent to a Texas internment camp, where she befriends Japanese American Mariko.
For fans of: Jamie Ford's Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Karin Tanabe's The Diplomat's Daughter.
Want a taste? "I've a thief to thank for finding the one person I need to see before I die."
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Over the Fence
by Mary Monroe
What happens: Depression-era Southern bootleggers Milton and Yvonne Hamilton discover their neighbors are involved in dubious businesses themselves and threaten to blackmail them in order to hide their own dirty secrets, in the second novel of the series following One House Over.
Book buzz: "VERDICT The second in the “Neighbors” series (after One House Over) by best-selling author Monroe presents an absorbing story line and genuine characters. The author skillfully immerses readers in a 1930s small town, complete with the friendships, squabbles, family issues, hidden truths, and desperate times of the Great Depression. The cliff-hanger ending will have readers eagerly awaiting the next in the series." -- Library Journal
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| The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate AlcottWhat it's about: In 1832, Alice Barrow leaves her family's New Hampshire farm to find work at a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Complications ensue: While Alice finds camaraderie with her fellow "mill girls," she's troubled by the dangerous working conditions and conflicted by her feelings for Samuel Fiske, the mill owner's son.
Reviewers say: a "spirited story of young working women making hard choices" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| The Last Ballad by Wiley CashWhy you might like it: Set in 1929 North Carolina, this novel follows millworker and single mother Ella May Wiggins as she risks everything to join a union.
About the author: CWA Gold Dagger Award-winning author Wiley Cash is best known for his rural noir, including A Land More Kind Than Home and This Dark Road to Mercy.
For fans of: Ron Rash, Daniel Woodrell, or Doug Marlette. |
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| Work Song by Ivan DoigWhat happens: First introduced in The Whistling Season, itinerant scapegrace Morrie Morgan arrives in Butte, Montana, where he becomes the town's librarian and gets caught up in a labor dispute between the Anaconda Copper Company and its workers.
For fans of: warmhearted tales of the American West featuring compelling characters and a strong sense of place.
Want a taste? "I happily stepped into that role of librarian as bartender of information. Presiding over shelves of intoxicating items, dispensing whatever brand of knowledge was ordered up, I am sure I poured generously." |
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| The Widows by Jess MontgomeryThe setting: 1924, Kinship, Ohio, a hardscrabble coal-mining town in the throes of worker unrest.
Starring: Lily Ross, the new acting sheriff of Bronwyn County, and Marvena Whitcomb, a miner's widow turned union organizer.
What happens: After Lily's husband, the sheriff, is murdered and Marvena's daughter goes missing, the two women team up to discover what happened -- and unearth layer upon layer of secrets and lies. |
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Sea Glass : a novel
by Anita Shreve
What it is about: Honora and Sexton Beecher find their lives forever changed when they are rendered virtually penniless by the crash of the stock market, forcing Sexton to work in a nearby mill, a job that is plagued by violence, and as they try to reconstruct their marriage and home, they are confronted by passions of every kind, in a powerful novel by the author of The Pilot's Wife.
Series alert: Book 2 in the Fortune's Rocks Series
Author note:Anita Shreve is the author of several internationally bestselling novels: The Pilot's Wife, which was a selection of Oprah's Book Club; Eden Close; Strange Fits of Passion; Where or When; Resistance; The Weight of Water, which was a finalist for the prestigious Orange Prize; and Fortune's Rocks. She lives in New England .
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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