Historical Fiction Books

Philadelphia, 1837. Charlotte expected freedom to feel different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. Instead, she's locked away playing servant to her white-passing father. Longing to break away, Charlotte befriends Nell, a budding abolitionist from one of Philadelphia's wealthiest Black families. As Charlotte starts to envision a future, a familiar face from her past reappears: Evie - and she's desperate to escape. In a city engulfed by race riots and attacks on abolitionists, Charlotte and Nell soon discover that fighting for Evie's freedom may cost them their own

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Portia Washington's father Booker T. Washington was formerly enslaved and spent his life championing the empowerment of Black Americans through his school, known popularly as Tuskegee Institute, as well as his political connections. When Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency, his eldest daughter Alice Roosevelt joined him in the White House. ... Brought together in the wake of their fathers' friendship, these ... women helped each other struggle through marriages, pregnancies, and political upheaval, supporting each other throughout their lives.

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Print run 50,000.

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"John, an impoverished Scottish minister, has accepted a job evicting the lone remaining occupant of an island north of Scotland--Ivar, who has been living alone for decades, with only the animals and the sea for company. Though his wife, Mary, has serious misgivings about the errand, he decides to go anyway, setting in motion a chain of events that neither he nor Mary could have predicted. Shortly after John reaches the island, he falls down a cliff and is found, unconscious and badly injured, by Ivar who takes him home and tends to his wounds. The two men do not speak a common language, but as John builds a dictionary of Ivar's world, they learn to communicate and, as Ivar sees himself for the first time in decades reflected through the eyes of another person, they build a fragile, unusual connection. Unfolding in the 1840s in the final stages of the infamous Scottish Clearances--which saw whole communities of the rural poor driven off the land in a relentless program of forced evictions--this singular, beautiful, deeply surprising novel explores the differences and connections between us, the way history shapes our deepest convictions, and how the human spirit can survive despite all odds. Moving and unpredictable, sensitive and spellbinding, Clear is a profound and pleasurable read."--Publisher's website.

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"Even an earl needs his ride-or-dies, and Archibald Fielding-Burton, the Earl of Harcourt, counts himself lucky to have two. The annual trip that Archie takes with his BFFs Simon and Effie holds a sacred spot in their calendars. This year Archie is especially eager to get away until an urgent letter arrives from an old family friend, begging him to help prevent a ruinous scandal. Suddenly the trip has become earls-plus-girls, as Archie's childhood pals Clementine and Olive Morgan, are rescued en route to Gretna Green. ... The fully grown Clementine, while as frank and refreshing as he remembers, is also different to the wild, windswept girl he knew. This Clem is complex and surprising--and adamantly opposed to marriage. Which, for reasons Archie dare not examine too closely, he finds increasingly vexing"-- Provided by publisher.

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"Lively and charming silent movie actress Lily Temple is everything private investigator Peter Driscoll is not. It makes sense, then, that combining forces would mean more cases solved and secrets revealed. Except for Lily's own - why a legendary missing sapphire is within her possession and on her person at all times"-- Provided by publisher.

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"A young Southern woman sets out on a journey of self-discovery as the infamous 1925 Scopes Trial tests her faith and her marriage in this moving novel from the author of Time After Time and The Irresistible Henry House."-- Amazon.ca.

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In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the lines between magic, science, and fraud are never certain. As her notoriety grows, she will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive - even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santángel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.

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Dumped in Possum Flats, Missouri, by her free-spirited mother, in 1978, 15-year-old Daisy Flowers, sentenced to spend the summer with her mortician grandmother, sets the town on edge when she becomes obsessed with investigating the horrors and heroes of a long-ago tragedy after a family connection is revealed.

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With the Great War finally behind them, thousands of civilians and business moguls alike flock to South Florida. When wealthy industrialist Robert Barnes and his wife, Anna, build Marbrisa, a glamorous estate on Biscayne Bay, they become the toast of the newly burgeoning society. Years later, Carmen Acosta journeys to Marbrisa. On the surface, the gilded estate looks like paradise, but Carmen quickly learns that nothing at Marbrisa is as it seems. Carmen's own life is soon in jeopardy - unless she can unravel the secrets buried beneath the mansion's facade and stop history from repeating itself.

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In in 1930s Los Angeles Chinatown, the Chow sisters, May, Gemma, and Peony, suspect foul play in the death of Chinatown star Lulu Wong and take it upon themselves to solve the murder, revealing a conspiracy that threatens their Chinatown neighborhood.

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"Lieutenant Eli Williams was supposed to be dead. In the two years since his shipwreck, his friends and family mourned him, his brother spent his savings, and his fiancée married someone else. So, when he turns up in the middle of the London social season, he quickly becomes the talk of the town. All Eli wants is to set his life back in order and reconnect with Jane Bishop, a friend who has always meant so much more to him, before returning to sea. Jane refuses to waste any more of her life pining over Eli, who chose her cousin instead of her. She needs to focus on gaining her financial independence by establishing a ladies' gambling club. Never mind that Eli keeps trying to atone for his past mistake by bringing in new members. He's obviously keeping secrets about his disappearance, which means that she can't trust him with her heart even if she did kiss him in a moment of weakness. Or three. As Eli works to regain her trust, Jane's defensive walls begin to crumble. But when Eli faces a court of inquiry on suspicion of desertion, Jane must decide if she can let go of the past to build a future with Eli, or risk losing him for good"-- Provided by publisher.

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When the legendary Cordon Bleu cooking school holds open demonstrations, it's a treat for any aspiring cook - until one of the chefs pours himself a glass of wine from a rare vintage bottle and promptly drops dead in front of Julia Child, Tabitha Knight, and other assembled guests. It's the first in a frightening string of poisonings that turns grimly personal when cyanide-laced wine is sent to someone very close to Tabitha. Tabitha and Julia's investigation takes them through some of the darkest corners of France's wartime past.

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When outlaw Butch Cassidy decides to go straight, he'll have to become someone else entirely. A brief, fateful encounter with the celebrated singer Jane Touissant offers a glimpse of what might have been. But Butch disappears - until their paths unexpectedly converge again in Paris. Despite having discovered his true identity, Jane enlists his protection on her upcoming American tour. As they set forth on their journey, Butch's past and Jane's secrets put them at risk from threats far greater than the law, and Butch will have to decide what matters most - his life, his legacy, or the woman he loves.

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When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual inheritance: a one-way plane ticket and a note reading "Go to Paris." Alone in a foreign city, Stella stumbles across a vintage store where she tries on a fabulous Dior dress. For the first time in her life, Stella does something impulsive. She buys the dress and together they embark on an adventure. Stella ends up living as a "tumbleweed" at famed bookstore Shakespeare & Company, uncovers a hundred-year-old mystery in a Manet painting, and discovers a passion for food that may be connected to her past

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Starting on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love. In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.

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Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death. When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realizes that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won't allow her to stay anywhere for longer than a few days nor return to a place where she's already been.

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Seventeen-year-old musician Xue faces a lifetime of servitude until Duke Meng offers her freedom in exchange for serving as a musician in residence, but Xue soon discovers the Duke is a celestial ruler with ulterior motives and she must unlock her past to prevent an impending war in the Six Realms.

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In 2011, Eunju Oh opens her door to greet a stranger: a young Korean American woman holding a familiar-looking knife - a knife Eunju hasn't seen in more than thirty years, and that connects her to a place she'd desperately hoped to leave behind forever. In South Korea in the 1980s, homeless young Eunju and her mother are sent to live within the walls of a state-sanctioned reformatory centre. Eunju and the other labourers are all forced down a path of survival, the repercussions of which will echo for decades to come.

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"Cora Dove and her sisters’ questionable legitimacy has been the lifelong subject of New York’s gossipmongers and a continual stain on their father’s reputation. So when the girls each receive a generous, guilt-induced dowry from their dying grandmother, the sly Mr. Hathaway vows to release their funds only if Cora and her sisters can procure suitable husbands—far from New York. For Cora, England is a fresh start. She has no delusions of love, but a husband who will respect her independence? That’s an earl worth fighting for. Enter: Leopold Brendon, Earl of Devonworth, a no-nonsense member of Parliament whose plan to pass a Public Health bill that would provide clean water to the working class requires the backing of a wealthy wife. He just never expected to crave Cora’s touch or yearn to hear her thoughts on his campaign—or to discover that his seemingly perfect bride protects so many secrets... But secrets have a way of bubbling to the surface, and Devonworth has a few of his own. With their pasts laid bare and Cora’s budding passion for women’s rights taking a dangerous turn, they’ll learn the true cost of losing their heart to a stranger—and that love is worth any price."-- Provided by publisher.

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"Carrie Ballentyne's life was upended in 1845 when she had to leave the only home she'd ever known in the mountains of upstate New York. With her are her widowed mother and younger brother Nathan, but the separation from Bonner, Ballentyne, and Savard relatives weighs heavily. In time Carrie finds footing as a midwife and nurse, but she never feels at ease in the city. So when, a decade later, she receives an invitation from a doctor in Santa Fe to join him at his practice, she readily accepts. The trip across the country is long and often dangerous, but she travels the last leg on horseback with men who have been hired to see her safely through the Native nations fighting the westward flood of colonizers. On that journey she makes friends who will be with her for all her life: Eva, a young widow; and Eli, an experienced surveyor. Once Carrie is established in Santa Fe, it becomes clear that her employer is not everything she was led to believe, and she is forced to face far more challenges and responsibilities than she anticipated"-- Provided by publisher.

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Five years after working for the Office of Strategic Services with Nick, whom she gets close to until the World War II' end brings with it an act of deep betrayal, former spy Evelyn, now working as a PI, finds herself back in Nick's orbit when her latest case brings the war to her doorstep.

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The Isle of Jersey was once a warm and neighborly community, but in 1943, German soldiers patrol the cobbled streets, imposing a harsh rule. Nazis have ordered Grace La Mottée, the island's only librarian, to destroy books that threaten the new regime. Instead, she hides the stories away in secret. Along with her headstrong best friend, she wants to fight back. So she forms the Wartime Book Club: a lifeline, offering fearful islanders the joy and escapism of reading. But as the occupation drags on, the women's quiet acts of bravery become more perilous-- and more important-- than ever before. And when tensions turn to violence, they are forced to face the true, terrible cost of resistance.

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In 2007 Ukraine, after Yefim Shulman, beloved husband, grandfather and World War II veteran, passes away, his widow Nina finds a letter to the KGB in his briefcase that reveals his lifelong secret, which forces them to reassess the man they thought they knew and the country he defended.

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