What’s New in Historical Fiction
-
The captivating story of a young woman's pursuit of justice and her struggle with the moral complexities of revenge in seventeenth-century Switzerland.
Beatrice Barbary has been raised to believe that while education will set her mind free, there are some questions better left unanswered. But when her father, one of the most powerful men in Bern, is brutally murdered in their own home, she is left reeling, unprotected and vulnerable. Plunging headfirst into the mysteries surrounding her father and her own upbringing, Beatrice discovers The Order of St. Eve and the violent secrets they have been hiding her entire life.
Will she be able to right the wrongs of her father, or will the Order silence her first? Set in a city at breaking point, Beatrice's story toes the dangerously thin line between retribution and revenge, and the choice we must make when confronted by evil. A loose retelling of Bluebeard, The House of Barbary is a fierce, feminist novel perfect for readers of Sarah Penner and Jessie Burton. -
In a world that wants to silence them, one group of women dares to sing.
In the dreary streets of 1890s Briarstown, a fictional Yorkshire mill town, Eliza Kingwell fights to survive in a home filled with hardship. When a devastating loss crushes her plan to escape with her five daughters, she turns to an unlikely lifeline: a local singing competition. With nothing left to lose, she gathers a feisty group of working-class women to form a choir-and sets her sights on a cash prize that could change her life forever.
Meanwhile, Ruth Henton-once Eliza's best friend and now a star on the London stage-is disgraced by scandal and must find new purpose and redemption. As fate would have it, Ruth becomes a judge in the very competition Eliza needs to win.
While Eliza's choir trains for its chance at glory, secrets simmer, friendships deepen, and long-buried wounds surface. In a time and place where women's voices are too often ignored, The Choir is a triumphant story of music, sisterhood, and reclaiming power.
Perfect for fans of Jennifer Chiaverini, Tracy Chevalier and Pip Williams, The Choir is a stirring, beautifully written novel that celebrates the strength of women who dare to rise-and sing.
-
For fans of Kate Quinn, a dual-timeline adventure novel of a historian who risks everything—including her life—to discover the truth about a female Renaissance sculptor unjustly erased by history.
Two determined women four hundred years apart. One mysterious statue. And a bombshell that could change history.
Art historian Mia is running out of time to prove her theory that the sculptor of an unearthed erotic statue was a courtesan erased from history—a scandal no one will believe. Chasing through Venice, she tracks down hidden details of Sofia, a powerful courtesan who seems to have left a trail of sex-fueled art buried across the city, but Mia’s now being followed, and even her boss might be in on the lie.
Meanwhile, in 1609, Sofia defies Venice’s unfair laws to create illicit art that could ruin her future. Her aspirations to become a great artist go up in flames when her patron’s wife steals her work and threatens her lover.
Four hundred years later, it's up to Mia to discover the truth, but now she’s uncovered a world of art theft that could leave her ousted—or, worse, right in the crosshairs of the most powerful crime family in Italy, who will stop at nothing to force her to authenticate the famous statue. Mia’s only hope is to prove Sofia’s existence before everyone involved silences them both forever. -
In the early years of the eighteenth century, the settlers living in the hamlet of Hartfield Falls in "English America" face the looming threat posed by historical and political forces beyond their control. Queen Anne's War has brought the French and their Native American allies into deadly proximity to New England's colonists.
On one fateful day in the depth of winter, young Constance Baker is taken captive in a bloody raid on Hartfield Falls and marched north to Canada-a march she barely survives. Soon her destiny becomes bound up in a struggle between her English parents, the Mohawk tribe into which she has been adopted, and a French Jesuit priest, who reluctantly takes on her spiritual direction. In this crucible of loss and suffering, of clashing faiths and sensibilities-where sacrifices are sometimes demanded and sometimes freely given-all will be irrevocably changed.
In a manner reminiscent of George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo, Child of These Tears is told in polyphonic form, through a variety of narrative genres-captivity tale, commonplace book, letters, and journals. The result is a searing, unforgettable novel that explores the nature of memory, belonging, redemption, and grace.