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Historical Fiction May 2026 |
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The Island Club
by Nicola Harrison
Balboa Island, 1956: Just off the California coast, life seems peaceful and welcoming. But when the lives of three women begin to unravel in shockingly different ways, an unlikely friendship--and the game of tennis--may be the only thing that can save them. Set against the sun-drenched beaches of Balboa Island, with its prim and proper 1950s facade, The Island Club is a story of love, loneliness and the lies we tell ourselves--and what can be gained when the truth is finally revealed.
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| Railsong by Rahul BhattacharyaIn a newly independent India charged with national vigour, Charu, the motherless daughter of a railway worker, pines for freedom from the shackles of her impoverishment and meagre prospects. As diesel engines replace steam and the calamitous churn of drought, famine, and a great strike engulfs her town, Charu dares to imagine a different future for herself. She boards a train and flees westwards, leaving behind the oppressive domesticity of her childhood for the alluring modernity, and apparent opportunities, of Bombay. Unfazed by the everyday discriminations around her, she becomes an unlikely hero: a railway woman and census enumerator who keeps her heart open to her nation's vast possibility. |
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The Calamity Club
by Kathryn Stockett
Oxford, Mississippi, 1933. Abandoned by her mother one Christmas Eve, eleven-year-old, Meg Lefleur, has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Now one of the unadoptable big girls at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed. Birdie Calhoun, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford to ask her socialite sister to help the struggling family she's left behind. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie discovers her sister's seemingly charmed life is a tapestry of lies. Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman running low on luck with little left to lose. When their fates--and Meg's--converge, Charlie comes up with an audacious plan for them to take control of their lives. But in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife and women's freedom is fragile, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences.
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| A Bad, Bad Place by Frances CrawfordIn 1979 Glasgow, orphaned 12-year-old Janey Devine, who lives with her nana, is out walking her dog Sid Vicious when she finds the body of college-aged Samantha Watson, daughter of the local crime boss. Janey's traumatized and there's something she can't share with anyone, though the cops keep questioning her and Samantha's grieving dad also visits. This evocative, leisurely paced debut is gritty but has threads of humor throughout. |
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Now Then
by Morgan Radford
In this sweeping debut novel by NBC News Anchor, Morgan Radford, Now Then follows a Harvard student navigating her own path to self-discovery while uncovering her mother's secret past fleeing the Cuban Revolution. Now Then is a powerful tale that explores the weight of secrets, the hope that comes with second chances, and the choices we live with - and love through - forever.
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| The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis HallWorld War II separates tight-knit twins Theo and Tessa when Theo joins the Royal Air Force and French-speaking Tessa trains as a Special Operations Executive (SOE) operative. Afterwards, a wounded Theo mourns war casualties, hides his homosexuality since it's still illegal, and wonders about his still-missing sister. Decades later, PhD candidate Edie researches women in the SOE, leading her and Theo to team up and investigate what happened to Tessa. |
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| The Sisters of Book Row by Shelley NobleIn 1915 New York, the three Applebaum sisters live together and run the rare bookshop they inherited from their dad. Olivia handles repairs, while friendly Daphne and youngest Celia run the store. But they each have secrets, including Celia's distribution of banned women's health articles. With classic literature and art also at risk due to the censorious Comstock Laws, New York's Book Row shopkeepers work together. |
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| Evil Genius by Claire OshetskyIn 1970s San Francisco, 19-year-old Celia works at the telephone company, where an adulterous coworker has been murdered by her husband. Unhappily married to a controlling man eleven years her senior, Celia finds the sex and violence of the story tantalizing, and begins to dream of freedom and killing her spouse in this slightly surreal and darkly humorous novel. |
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| Where the Girls Were by Kate SchatzIn this electrifying and heartfelt historical coming-of-age novel, set against the tumultuous backdrop of 1960s San Francisco, a pregnant teenager, Baker, reckons with womanhood and agency after being sent to a home for unwed mothers. As Baker finds her strength and her voice, she shows us how to step into your power, even when the world is determined to keep you silent. Where the Girls Were is a timely unearthing of a little-known moment in American history, when the sexual revolution and feminist movement collided with the limits of reproductive rights—and society's expectations of women. |
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We Inherit the Fire
by Kagiso Lesego Molope
In late-1980s South Africa, teenager Kelelo is forced to leave her mountain school for a newly desegregated school in town, where her identity as the daughter of celebrated freedom fighter, Kewame "Dolly" Malaka, makes her an instant curiosity. While her classmates see her as a symbol of progress, at home she struggles with a mother who is emotionally unreachable and haunted by effects of apartheid. Kewame, now living in material comfort, hides a growing inner collapse as memories of prison life and the women who sustained her resurface, stirred by her grandmother's illness and the pressure of maintaining a facade of perfection. As mother and daughter navigate a shifting political landscape, We Inherit the Fire interlaces their voices to reveal the unspoken wounds, buried histories, and complex inheritance of resilience, pain, and responsibility that bind and divide generations of Black South African women.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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