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Historical Fiction June 2025 |
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| My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel AllendeRaised by her Irish former nun mother and a loving stepdad in San Francisco, Emilia del Valle never knows her Chilean aristocrat father. As a young journalist covering the Chilean Civil War of 1891, she begins a romance and also meets the father who abandoned her. Isabel Allende fans will relish reading about the del Valles, whose various members often appear in her work. Try this next: Kaitlyn Greenidge's Libertie. |
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Harlem Rhapsody
by Victoria Christopher Murray
In 1919, Jessie Redmon Fauset becomes the first Black woman literary editor of The Crisis magazine, putting her at the forefront of Harlem's cultural renaissance, where she discovers talents such as Langston Hughes and Nella Larsen. But her ambitions and a secret affair with W.E.B. Du Bois threaten it all. Try these next: Piper Huguley's By Her Own Design; Tia Williams' A Love Song for Ricki Wilde.
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Duchess material
by Emily Sullivan
"Phoebe Atkinson is what society might call unconventional. Instead of marrying well like other women born to wealth, she chose to be a schoolteacher. Not to mention she lives in a leaky flat in an unfashionable part of town rather than stay in her parents' mansion. But when her most promising pupil goes missing and the police ignore her, she has only one option: beg her sister's best friend, the powerful Duke of Ellis, for help. If sending him a message from the police station doesn't get his attention,nothing will. The last thing William Margrave ever expected was to inherit a dukedom. But now that he has it, he's determined to act the part perfectly-and that includes marrying the perfect duchess. A bluestocking Bohemian schoolteacher is decidedly notduchess material. But he can't resist her plea for help regarding her missing student. As they fall further into the mystery, William discovers two things: that he never really got over his childhood crush on Phoebe, and he doesn't really want to"
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A slash of emerald
by Patrice McDonough
"London, 1867: Among the genteel young ladies of London society, painting is a perfectly acceptable pastime--but a woman who dares to pursue art as a profession is another prospect, indeed. Dr. Julia Lewis, familiar with the disrespect afforded women in untraditional careers, is hardly surprised when Scotland Yard shows little interest in complaints made by her friend, Mary Allingham, about a break-in at her art studio. Mary is just one of many "lady painters" being targeted by vandals. Painters' sittersare vanishing, too--women viewed by some as dispensable outcasts. Inspector Richard Tennant, however, takes the attacks seriously, suspecting they're linked to the poison-pen letters received by additional members of the Allingham family. For Julia, the issue is complicated by Tennant's previous relationship with Mary's sister-in-law, Louisa, and by her own surprising reaction to that entanglement. But when someone close to them commits suicide and a young woman turns up dead, the case can no longer be so easily ignored by 'respectable' society. Layer after layer, Julia and Tennant scrape away the facts of the case like paint from a canvas. What emerges is a somber picture of vice, depravity, and deception stretching from London's East End to the Far East--with a killer at its center, determined to get away with one last, grisly murder..."
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| The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan HenryIn 1927, a famed author leaves her South Carolina home in the middle of the night. In 1952 London, Charles Jameson finds the author's papers and a letter addressed to Clara, the daughter she left behind. This soon leads Charles, Clara, and Clara's young daughter to the Lake District in search of answers. Try these next: Rhys Bowen's The Tuscan Child; Ann Hood's The Stolen Child. |
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Dead in the frame
by Stephen Spotswood
Willowjean“Will” Parker races against time to clear her boss, famed detective Lillian Pentecost, of a murder she didn't commit, while Lillian fights to survive in prison, in the fifth novel of the series following Murder Crossed Her Mind.
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| Six Days in Bombay by Alka JoshiWhispers of independence swirl in 1930s Bombay, India, as young Anglo-Indian nurse Sona bonds with her latest charge, famous painter Mira Novak, who's also mixed race. After Mira dies, Sona is determined to honor her new friend's request: hand-delivering paintings to people in Prague, Florence, and Paris. Read-alike: Three Words for Goodbye by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb. |
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| The Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club by Martha Hall KellyInspired by real events, this compelling novel follows Mari Starwood in 2016 as she visits reclusive Martha's Vineyard painter Elizabeth, who has ties to Mari's recently deceased mother. Elizabeth tells Mari about the island during World War II, focusing on two teenage sisters who form a book club, run the family farm, and look for German U-boats and spies. For fans of: Madeline Martin's The Last Bookshop in London; Amy Lynne Green's The Blackout Book Club. |
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| The Eights by Joanna MillerIn 1920, Oxford University admits degree-seeking women for the first time. On Corridor Eight, insecure Beatrice, socialite Otto, scholarship student Marianne, and grieving Dora bond as they navigate sexism, personal loss, societal expectations, and the lingering trauma of World War I. This well-researched, character-driven debut will please fans of Natalie Jenner's Bloomsbury Girls and Dorothy L. Sayers' Gaudy Night. |
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The Gatsby gambit
by Claire Anderson-Wheeler
Greta Gatsby, newly arrived at her brother Jay's West Egg mansion, finds her idyllic summer shattered by scandal, betrayal, and murder, forcing her to navigate the secrets of a glittering yet dangerous world of wealth and deception.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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