Historical Fiction
A mix of eras, stories, settings and characters in these historical novels chosen by our librarians.
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The Confessions of Frannie Langton: A Novel
A servant and former slave is accused of murdering her employer and his wife in this astonishing historical thriller that moves from a Jamaican sugar plantation to the fetid streets of Georgian London.
Format: Book - 2019 First U.S. edition
Holds: 29 on 8 copies
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Washington Black
Washington Black is an eleven-year-old field slave who knows no other life than the Barbados sugar plantation where he was born. When his master's eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain await him. But Christopher Wilde, or "Titch," is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor, and abolitionist. He initiates Wash into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky; where two people, separated by an impossible divide, might begin to see each other as human; and where a boy born in chains can embrace a life of dignity and meaning. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Titch abandons everything to save him. What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic, where Wash, left on his own, must invent another new life.
Format: Book - 2018 First United States edition
Holds: 44 on 79 copies
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Gods of Jade and Shadow
"The Mayan god of death sends a young woman on a harrowing, life-changing journey in this dark, one-of-a-kind fairy tale inspired by Mexican folklore. The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather's house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own.Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather's room. She opens it--and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea's demise, but success could make her dreams come true.In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatu00e1n to the bright lights of Mexico City--and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld."--
Format: Book - 2019 First edition
Holds: 88 on 25 copies
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The Stationery Shop
"A novel set in 1953 Tehran, against the backdrop of the Iranian Coup, about a young couple in love who are separated on the eve of their marriage, and who are reunited sixty years later, after having moved on to live independent lives in America, to discover the truth about what happened on that fateful day in the town square"--
Format: Book - 2019 First Gallery Books hardcover edition
Holds: 4 on 13 copies
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Delayed Rays of A Star: A Novel
"At a chance encounter at a Berlin soiru00e9e in 1928, the photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captures three very different women together in one frame: up-and-coming German actress Marlene Dietrich, who would wend her way into Hollywood as one of its lasting icons; Anna May Wong, the world's first Chinese American star, playing for bit parts while dreaming of breaking away from her father's modest laundry; and Leni Riefenstahl, whose work as a director would first make her famous--then, infamous. ...From Weimar Berlin to LA's Chinatown, from a seaside resort in East Germany to a luxury apartment on the Champs-u00c9lysu00e9e, the different settings they inhabit are as richly textured as the roles they play: siren, muse, predator, or lover, each one a carefully calibrated performance. And in the orbit of each star live secondary players--a Chinese immigrant housemaid, a German soldier on leave from North Africa, a pompous Hollywood director--whose voices and viewpoints reveal the legacy each woman left in her own time, as well as in ours."--
Format: Book - 2019 First edition
Holds: 1 on 6 copies
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The Burning Chambers
"Circe France, 1562: Nineteen-year-old Minou Joubert receives an anonymous letter at her father's bookshop. Sealed with a distinctive family crest, it contains just five words: SHE KNOWS THAT YOU LIVE. But before Minou can decipher the mysterious message, a chance encounter with a young Huguenot convert, Piet Reydon, changes her destiny forever. For Piet has a dangerous mission of his own, and he will need Minou's help if he is to stay alive."--
Format: Book - 2019 First U.S. edition
Holds: 2 on 6 copies
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The Bird King
The story of Fatima, a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain, and her dearest friend Hassan, the palace mapmaker. Hassan has a secret--he can draw maps of places he's never seen and bend the shape of reality. When representatives of the newly formed Spanish monarchy arrive to negotiate the sultan's surrender, Fatima befriends one of the women, not realizing that she will see Hassan's gift as sorcery and a threat to Christian Spanish rule. With their freedoms at stake, what will Fatima risk to save Hassan and escape the palace walls?
Format: Book - 2019 First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition
Holds: 10 on 58 copies
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In the Full Light of the Sun
"Follows the fortunes of three Berliners caught up in an art scandal--involving newly discovered van Goghs--that rocks Germany amidst the Nazis' rise to power. Hedonistic and politically turbulent, Berlin in the 1920s is a city of seedy night clubs and sumptuous art galleries. It is home to millionaires and mobs storming bakeries for rationed bread. These disparate Berlins collide when Emmeline,a young art student; Julius, an art expert; and a mysterious dealer named Rachmann all find themselves caught up in the astonishing discovery of thirty-two previously unknown paintings by Vincent van Gogh. In the Full Light of the Sun explores the trio's complex relationships and motivations, their hopes, their vanities, and their self-delusions--for the paintings are fakes and they are in their own ways complicit. Theirs is a cautionary tale about of the aspirations of the new Germany and a generation determined to put the humiliations of the past behind them."--
Format: Book - 2019
Holds: 15 on 24 copies
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A Bend in the Stars
"An epic love story and heart-pounding journey across WWI-era Russia, about a brilliant young scientist racing against Einstein to solve one of the greatest mysteries of the universe"--
Format: Book - 2019 First edition
Holds: 6 on 12 copies
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The Night Tiger
A vivacious dance-hall girl in 1930s colonial Malaysia is drawn into unexpected danger by the discovery of a severed finger that is being sought by a young houseboy in order to protect his late master's soul. (12/5/2019 2:28:04 PM)
Format: Book - 2019 First Edition
Holds: 20 on 21 copies
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