Historical Fiction

The Mercy Seat (Hardcover)

By Elizabeth H. Winthrop

$20.80

ISBN: 9780802128188

Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Grove Press - May 8th, 2018

 

A quiet, powerful, and brilliant novel, based on the historical case of a black man wrongfully sentenced to death for rape in 1943 Mississippi. The entire story unfolds over a 12-hour period, with chapters alternately assuming the perspectives of a number of people with different relationships to its events - the defendant, his father, the prosecutor, the executioner, the priest, and many others. It is about both overt and subtle prejudice, reflexive vitriol, muted decency, and the profound ugliness and complexity of race in the Jim Crow south.

David

Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All (Hardcover)

By Candace Fleming (From an idea by)

$18.99

ISBN: 9781524716196

Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Schwartz & Wade - May 1st, 2018

 

The retelling of the lives of Henry VIII and his six wives - seven voices by seven authors - remarkable!

Robin

The Beloved Wild (Hardcover)

By Melissa Ostrom

$17.99

ISBN: 9781250132796

Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Feiwel & Friends - March 27th, 2018

 

A teenage girl dresses as a boy and follows her older brother to western New York in 1807.

Sarah

In the Distance (Paperback)

By Hernan Diaz

$16.95

ISBN: 9781566894883

Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Coffee House Press - October 10th, 2017

Through the story of Hakan, a Swedish immigrant to the United States in the mid 1800s, Diaz meditates on the nature of impersonal landscape, explores a life of isolation, and tours through some of characters that carved the identity of the American West. This is a strange and brilliant version of historical fiction, twisting the genre into something unique. For fans of Cormac McCarthy and  Eleanor Catton's Booker Prize winning novel The Luminaries.

Josh

The Women in the Castle: A Novel (Hardcover)

By Jessica Shattuck

$26.99

ISBN: 9780062563668

Availability: Available at Warehouse

Published: William Morrow - March 28th, 2017

You will find this beautifully written historical novel quite different from other World War II fiction you may have read. Spanning the periods before, during and after the war, the women of the title - three widows of men who in different ways had resisted the Nazis - find themselves in a dilapidated castle, coming to terms with the very complicated moral and emotional choices they have been forced to make. Winner of the 2017 New England Book award for fiction.

David

In the Distance (Paperback)

By Hernan Diaz

$16.95

ISBN: 9781566894883

Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Coffee House Press - October 10th, 2017

Through the story of Hakan, a Swedish immigrant to the United States in the mid 1800s, Diaz meditates on the nature of impersonal landscape, explores a life of isolation, and tours through some of characters that carved the identity of the American West. This is a strange and brilliant version of historical fiction, twisting the genre into something unique. For fans of Cormac McCarthy and  Eleanor Catton's Booker Prize winning novel The Luminaries.

Josh

Kintu (Paperback)

By Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, Aaron Bady (Introduction by)

$16.95

ISBN: 9781945492013

Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Transit Books - May 16th, 2017

A multi-generational family saga, an origin story for a nation, an examination of the complexities of personal identity, and a reckoning with the weight of the past; Makumbi’s debut novel (and smash bestseller in Uganda) of a cursed clan is historical fiction at its best.

Josh

The Weight of Ink (Hardcover)

By Rachel Kadish

$28.00

ISBN: 9780544866461

Availability: Available at Warehouse

Published: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - June 6th, 2017

A British academic is invited to examine a cache of letters found in a boarded-up closet in a 17th century house outside London. The novel alternates between the lives of London Jews of the 1600s whose lives are reflected in the letters, and the contemporary academics who are trying to piece together their stories. Enlightenment philosophy, London's plague and Great Fire, and 17th-century Jewish messianism are all artfully woven into this compelling work of historical fiction.

The Pearl Thief (Hardcover)

By Elizabeth Wein

$18.99

ISBN: 9781484717165

Availability: Available at Warehouse

Published: Disney-Hyperion - May 2nd, 2017

The author of Code Name Verity (the BEST book I read in 2012!) returns with a prequel companion novel featuring Julie Beaufort-Stuart at the age of fifteen, a crumbling estate, a mysterious disappearance, and a fortune in missing pearls. Superb historical fiction from one of the best.

Rebecca