 Supporting COMMUNITY. Inspiring DISCOVERY. Promoting LITERACY. |
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Historical Fiction August 2026 |
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| The Daffodil Days by Helen BainIn 1961, pregnant Sylvia Plath, her husband Ted Hughes, and their baby Frieda move to an English village. In December 1962, after the breakup of her marriage, Plath returns to London with her children. This quiet, well-researched debut is told in reverse chronological order via those in Plath's orbit during this time, including a physician, a housecleaner, a horse-riding instructor, and a dress shop assistant. For fans of: Plath's writing; The Last Confessions of Sylvia P. by Lee Kravetz; Euphoria by Elin Cullhed. |
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| The Top of the World by Ethan JoellaChip Bishop is 18 years old and dying of leukemia in the summer of 1974. Not telling his family his plans, he leaves home, finding work at a Poconos resort before returning to his family in the autumn for his final weeks of life. In 1975, his sister Maggie gets a job at the same resort, trying to understand why Chip left and what he did while he was gone. Alternating between the two summers, this is a heartfelt look at grief, friendship, family, and hope. |
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| Summer of Love by Kerri MaherPoet Winnie Hartley and her musician boyfriend live together in the midst of 1967 San Francisco's counterculture, but their union is volatile. Further up the coast, Winnie's sister Miranda dedicates herself to the family vineyard and wine business. Forty years later, Miranda's newly sober daughter discovers children's books that perfectly describe her family vineyard and sets out to find the famously anonymous author. Read-alikes: Where the Girls Were by Kate Schatz; California Golden by Melanie Benjamin. |
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Days of Sun and Shadow
by India Hayford
Born into tragedy but gifted with a powerful connection to the natural world, a resilient young woman comes of age amid the wild beauty of early-1800s Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas in this incandescent, hauntingly moving epic about home, horses, human connection, and the transcendent awe of nature for readers of Go As a River and The Giver of Stars.
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A Tender Age
by Chang-Rae Lee
From the Pulitzer Prize finalist, a story of guilt, innocence, and a boy on the cusp of adolescence. A spellbinding exploration of American masculinity and family dynamics as seen through the confused eyes of a prepubescent child of immigrants, A Tender Age joins the rich tradition of the American bildungsroman. The natural descendent of characters like Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caufield, Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids with dominion over a derelict baseball field, weedy parking lot, and rusty jungle gym. Getting into and out of trouble is all-consuming. But the summer he turns eleven, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family. Devastating in its emotional precision, A Tender Age captures a family and community in striking distance of the American dream, and a young person on the precipice of adult knowledge, looking at his own culpability and looking away--then thinking about it for the rest of his life.
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| The Queen's Coronation by Jennifer RyanIn 1953, Buckingham Palace staff prepare for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation while navigating their own lives: Caroline, assistant dresser to the queen, married for convenience and regrets it; beautiful wardrobe assistant Lucy dreams of singing stardom, capturing the attention of a deceitful man; and American Miranda, a temporary secretary, secretly writes about the coronation for her sexist boss in New York. But with new friends, the women might find new paths. Try this next: Christmas with the Queen by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb. |
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The Song of Stork and Dromedary
by Anjet Daanje
A thrilling literary puzzle that explores the haunted life and mysterious afterlifes of a writer and her work. Who was Eliza May Drayden? Is she just the quiet, intensely private person she seems to all the world in her little village of Bridge Fowling in the shadow of the West Yorkshire hills--or is there more to her than meets the eye? It is only after her death that Haeger Mass, her one book--a dark and cryptic novel--assumes a life of its own. In each new chapter of this literary treasure hunt that spans almost three hundred years, we see the conundrum through the eyes of a new generation of characters, each providing competing and interlocking versions of the life--and cursed vision--of this Emily Bront -like figure.
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The Women in White
by Sarah Pekkanen
The next thriller from #1 bestselling author Sarah Pekkanen combines a decades-old mystery with spine-tingling paranormal elements in this twisty novel of the seen and unseen. Extrasensory perception.The Gift.A Sixth Sense.Or something else.... In 1964, four remarkable young women at a prestigious university became the subjects of parapsychology experiments by a visionary scientist. On the cusp of a historic breakthrough, the women mysteriously vanished and the program was erased from history. Decades later, Riley Bell, newly divorced and desperate for a fresh start, accepts a caretaker job for an elderly widow named Betty. Riley steps into a home that is frozen in another era - no microwave, television, or cell phones, and Betty has never heard of the internet. Why has Betty lived in such profound isolation for so many years, and why does she need Riley now? As the story unfolds across two timelines - Betty's 1960s era of 5 o'clock martinis and high-stakes experiments, and Riley's quest to uncover the truth about the missing women - old secrets rise to the surface. And the only way to survive is to confront the mystery that has lingered for sixty years.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Mary Riley Styles Public Library
120 N. Virginia Ave, Falls Church, Virginia 22046 703-248-5030 (TTY 711) mrspl.org
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