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Historical Fiction April 2026 |
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The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives: A GMA Book Club Pick
by Elizabeth Arnott
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK A LIBRARYREADS PICK A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 FROM MARIE CLAIRE A BEST BOOK FOR BOOK CLUBS FROM GLAMOUR A SOUTHERN LIVING BOOK WE CAN'T WAIT TO READ THIS MARCH A remarkable trio whose lives have been cracked wide open by their husbands' crimes unite to catch a serial killer in this dazzlingly captivating novel. Beverley, Elsie, and Margot are not your average housewives. They are all wives of convicted killers. During the sun-drenched summer of 1966, the three women form an unlikely friendship after the discoveries of their husbands' brutal crimes. With their exes--some of California's most infamous murderers--dead or behind bars, they are attempting to forge a new future for themselves. Headstrong Beverley tries compulsively to maintain control of everything around her, all while raising two children. Bookish Elsie fights to make a name for herself in the newsroom, working among men who sneer at her career goals. Glamorous Margot prefers partying to homemaking and devotes all her energy to upholding the appearance that everything is fine--anything to quell the shame from her husband's deceit. They know people look at them and think only one thing: How could they not have known what their husbands were doing? How much are they to blame? And yet when a string of local killings hits the news, the three women--underestimated, overlooked, shrewd--decide to get to work. After all, who better to catch a killer than those who have shared their lives and homes with one? At once a riveting portrayal of shattered trust and a story of gripping suspense, The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives is a testament to the intricacies of women's lives and how the deep bonds of female friendship can empower, uplift, and lead us to endure.
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| Daughter of Egypt by Marie BenedictLady Evelyn Herbert defies societal expectations in 1919 and accompanies her father, Lord Carnarvon, and archeologist Howard Carter on digs in Egypt, where she seeks the tomb of Hatshepsut. In 1400s BCE, Hatshepsut becomes pharaoh against the odds. Following the lives of two women whom history almost forgot, this evocative novel is the latest from acclaimed author Marie Benedict. Read-alikes: Gill Paul's The Collector's Daughter; Saara El-Arifi's Cleopatra. |
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| Book of Forbidden Words by Louise FeinIn 1552 England, former nun Lysbette writes of a utopian world for women, but people find her words heretical and she's killed before her book can be printed. This leads Charlotte Guillard, a real-life Parisian publisher, to encode the work for posterity. In 1952 New York, bored housewife and World War II codebreaker Millie decodes the manuscript, but McCarthyism makes the centuries-old ideas inside still dangerous. Try these next: A.D. Bell's The Bookbinder's Secret; Chanel Cleeton's The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes. |
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Love & Other Monsters
by Emily Franklin
In the stormy, scandalous summer of 1816, daring eighteen-year-old Claire Clairmont changed the course of literature forever. But then--unlike her stepsister Mary Shelley--she was forgotten, until now. During the dangerous storms of The Year Without Summer, a group of famous young writers gathered at a mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her fiery fianc Percy Shelley, the famously promiscuous Lord Byron, and John Polidori, his sexually tormented personal physician. At the group's center was Claire Clairmont, Mary's impressionable, clever, and dangerously loyal stepsister. Those months of desire, betrayal, and creative passion gave the world the works of Frankenstein, the modern vampire, and the mythic image of these Romantic literary giants. In this intense and propulsive story of love, lust, art and betrayal Claire tells her story, trying to solve the mystery of why she was all but erased from history. Claire--herself a writer--is desperate to free herself from the uncomfortable role she plays in her sister's marriage in London. Fueled by Jane Austin's romantic novels, and believing love offers freedom, Claire begins an affair with celebrity Lord Byron and convinces Mary and Shelley to follow him to Switzerland. With the threat of paparazzi lurking nearby, Claire's intimate connection to each member of the celebrity group grows more complex. Her journey of self-discovery leads her to document everyone's secrets in her journal, and when climate disaster causes food shortages, Claire learns to forage, determined to prove her worth in a world built by and created for men. The real Claire Clairmont poured her love, life, and razor-sharp wit into her pages, yet her journal from 1816 is curiously missing and each member of the group had a reason to take it. With searing relevance to our here and now--of celebrity worship, climate disaster, of complicated femininity, Love & Other Monsters is the untold origin story of Frankenstein, a feminist reckoning of sisters, survival, and the creation of monsters--both those on the page and those who walk among us.
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| Autobiography of Cotton by Cristina Rivera GarzaReal-life 20-year-old activist and writer José Revueltas goes to Tamaulipas to support a 1934 Mexican cotton workers’ strike (which later forms the basis of his revolutionary novel Human Mourning). At the same time, a husband and wife travel to the fields to work. Weaving literary fiction with family history, political history, biography, analysis, and more, this is the intriguing latest by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice. |
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Son of Nobody
by Yann Martel
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by Esquire - Marie Claire - Art+ - The Times - The Guardian - The Observer - The Financial Times - BBC - The Sydney Morning Herald - A Globe and Mail Spring 2026 Read - Featured in The American Booksellers Association's Spring 2026 Preview - Oprah Daily - People's Best Books of March 2026 From the author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from two commoners: an ancient soldier and modern scholar. The past is never done with: always the song continues Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs. In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea, but known to all as son of nobody. As sole translator and interpreter of The Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the two-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn't frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love, and grief. In this masterpiece of myth, history, and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them, and how we live--then, now, and always.
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| White River Crossing by Ian McGuireIn the Canadian winter of 1766, news that there's gold further north leads the manager of a Hudson Bay Company outpost to send a secret group to investigate. Led by two Native couples, the party of three prospectors includes the manager's loathsome deputy, the intellectual first mate from the company's whaling sloop, and the manager's naive 19-year-old nephew. But an act of sexual violence will make a dangerous trip even more so in this atmospheric novel. Try this next: Kathleen Grissom's Crow Mary. |
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Faithful of Heart
by Tracie Peterson
Judith Stanford receives word from her estranged grandfather urging her to move to Minneapolis to earn his inheritance. Roman Turner, a local physician with a heart for the poor, harbors a grudge against Judith's grandfather. When Judith meets Roman in an attempt to right past wrongs, can they overcome a shadowed history and find grace and love for the future?
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Rain of Shadows and Endings
by Melissa K. Roehrich
A masterpiece in fated mates and broken bonds world-building for fans of Sarah J. Maas, Amber V. Nicole, Kaylie Smith, and Rebecca Yarros, the first installment in Melissa K. Roehrich's internationally bestselling Legacy Series is a contemporary dark romantasy set in a world forgotten by the gods, created for their descendants, roamed by dragons, served by Fae...and not so different from our own. No one writes emotional, immersive, beautiful chaos like Melissa Roehrich. If you love worlds you can practically touch and taste, angst that will have your heart pounding, and romance that will leave you breathless, Rain of Shadows and Endings will consume you from the beginning! --LJ Andrews, bestselling author of The Ever Seas and Broken Souls and Bones Out of all their creations, the gods favored their children the most. But with that favor came the fear that their Legacy would one day become too powerful . . . A World the Gods ForgotDevram is a realm hidden amongst the stars. The gods gave their Legacy the best of all the worlds, and then they left--having sworn to never return and to never interfere. A Historical EventForced into a life of servitude, the Fae provide for the Legacy in more ways than one. Every five years, eligible Fae are gathered for the Selection and assigned to serve in one of the six Kingdoms. To be chosen as the personal Source for a Kingdom Heir is the greatest honor, and for the first time in millennia, all six Kingdoms have heirs choosing a Source. But their selections could tip the power balance a little too far. A Chosen That Was Never Meant to BeTessalyn Asura was as forgotten as the realm. But when she finds herself the personal Source to the Heir of Endings, she winds up serving in the darkest Kingdom of them all. The secrets within the Arius Kingdom are meant to be learned and kept, but this was never the life she wanted. Fighting not only the fate thrust upon her, but the temptation to lose herself to desire, Tessa will do anything to escape her new destiny. Until she begins to realize that maybe their world isn't as forgotten as they thought--and that maybe she's the reason why.
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| A Far-Flung Life by M.L. StedmanOn a vast sheep station in 1958 Western Australia, a fatal accident changes the lives of the MacBrides. Left behind are injured teenager Matt, his older sister Rose, and his grief-stricken mom Lorna, who are eventually joined by a bright young boy. Exploring how loss and secrets reverberate for decades, this emotional family saga is the long-awaited sophomore novel from M.L. Stedman (The Light Between Oceans). Try these next: Heather Rose's A Great Act of Love; Michelle Huneven's Bug Hollow. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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Michigan City Public Library
100 E. 4th Street
Michigan City, Indiana 46360
219-873-3044mclib.org/ |
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