Recently published historical novels with a rich variety of settings and time periods. Annotations from NoveList, unless otherwise attributed. (Updated February 2025)
Isola
An engrossing account of a 16th century noblewoman who is abandoned on a remote island off the coast of New France and fights brutal conditions to survive.
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
View IsolaThe Great Divide
A sweeping saga of the building of the Panama Canal, told through the stories of the diverse laborers involved in its construction in 1907.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View The Great DivideThe Emperor and the Endless Palace
Drawing on Chinese mythology, this queer love story sweeps across centuries, from the ancient Han dynasty to 18th century China to present-day Los Angeles.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View The Emperor and the Endless PalaceThe Life of Herod the Great
Scholar Deborah Plant rescued this unfinished novel by Harlem Renaissance luminary Hurston, which looks at the Roman king’s life in a new light.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View The Life of Herod the GreatLoot
A young man in 18th century India helps build a full-size wooden tiger for the Sultan. A sprawling adventure ensues across continents, incorporating a love story and a critique of colonialism.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View LootAll We Were Promised
During a turbulent period of race riots and anti-Black violence in 1830s Philadelphia, three women struggle for freedom.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View All We Were PromisedNorth Woods
A wide cast of characters from precolonial times to the present are linked – sometimes in ghostly ways –through their connections to a house in rural western Massachusetts.
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
View North WoodsThe Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
The 1972 discovery of a human skeleton leads to an examination of events decades earlier, when a vibrant community of Black folks and immigrants helped each other to endure dark times.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View The Heaven & Earth Grocery StoreLet Us March on
This novel is based on the true story of Lizzie McDuffie, a Black maid in the White House during FDR’s presidency who appointed herself Secretary On Colored People’s Affairs.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View Let Us March onHarlem Rhapsody
Biographical fiction about Jessie Redmon Fauset, the “literary midwife” of the Harlem Renaissance.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View Harlem Rhapsody