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A Long Petal of the Sea, Isabel Allende's epic of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath

Allende’s fluidly written saga conveys her deep familiarity with the events she depicts, and her intent to illustrate their human impact in a moving way. The scope spans most of the lives of Victor Dalmau, a Republican army medic in 1936 Spain, and Roser Bruguera, a music student taken in by Victor’s family and, later, his brother Guillem’s lover and the mother of Guillem’s child. The story follows them over nearly sixty years, beginning with the tumult of the Spanish Civil War. Guillem is killed fighting against the Fascists, news that Victor can’t bear to tell Roser initially. After surviving separate and terrible circumstances that leave them refugees in France, where authorities treat them with contempt and worse, the two marry for practical reasons in order to join Pablo Neruda’s mission transporting over 2000 Spanish exiles to Chile aboard the S.S. Winnipeg . In Santiago, the Dalmaus find many Chileans sympathetic to the Spaniards, while others make them unwelcome. With a poetic ...
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The Secret

The Secret

The Huntress by Kate Quinn, a suspenseful historical novel about WWII's Night Witches and a quest for justice

Quinn follows up her breakout book, The Alice Network (2017), with an impressive historical novel sure to harness WWII-fiction fans’ attention. Each subplot in its triple-stranded structure thrums with tension that intensifies as they braid together. By 1950, the public’s appetite for tracking war criminals has diminished, but British former war correspondent Ian Graham and his American partner still pursue this painstaking and honorable work. Their ultimate target is die Jägerin (the Huntress), an elusive Nazi murderess, and, for Ian, the mission is personal. As they follow her trail, along with Nina Markova, the sole person to escape her clutches, Nina’s life story unfolds with tangible realism. A distinctly memorable, prickly, razor-wielding heroine, Nina flees remote Siberia in 1937 and trains as a pilot, eventually joining the sisterhood of female bombers known as the “Night Witches.” Lastly, in 1946 Boston, 17-year-old aspiring photographer Jordan McBride grows suspicious of he...
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Charles Finch's The Vanishing Man, a witty prequel to the Lenox mysteries set in Victorian England

In this second in a prequel trilogy to the Charles Lenox detective series (after The Woman in the Water ), our protagonist, aged twenty-six, has had some success but struggles to be taken seriously as a private investigator—by his social circle and Scotland Yard, both. It’s June 1853, and Lenox knows solving a case for the Duke of Dorset could make his career. His Grace wants Lenox to discover who stole a painting of his great-grandfather, the 14th duke, one in a series of portraits in his private study. Oddly, as the duke confides, the portrait alongside the missing one is the real treasure: it’s an oil painting of Shakespeare, done from life. Maybe the thief got it wrong. Getting entangled in the duke’s business leads to social disgrace—high-ranking noblemen are temperamental—and, eventually, to a much more serious case involving murder. There’s something comforting about stepping into the viewpoint of a cultured Victorian gentleman who observes social niceties and feels a deep sense...
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Writing the Forbidden, an essay by Ann Weisgarber, author of The Glovemaker, set in 1888 Utah Territory

I'm happy to welcome award-winning historical novelist Ann Weisgarber back to Reading the Past. Her atmospheric latest, The Glovemaker (Skyhorse, Feb. 2019), focuses on Deborah Tyler, who resides with her beloved husband, Samuel, in Junction, a tiny Mormon community set amid the cliffs and canyons of remote Utah Territory in 1888. While this is excellent character-centered literary fiction, its plot feels as taut as a thriller, with slow-building external and internal tensions. Samuel, a traveling wheelwright, is late returning home, worrying Deborah, and leaving her to face the consequences of helping a desperate stranger. The presence of the man, a suspected polygamist on the run from federal marshals, would throw her community into danger. The Tylers and other Junction families, who don't believe in plural marriage, are already feeling pressure to conform to standard Mormon practices. The Glovemaker  stands out for its well-wrought setting and its portrait of faith, independ...
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The Song Peddler of the Pont Neuf by Laura Lebow, a mystery of 1788 Paris

Paul Gastebois, a “confidential inquirer” in Paris of 1788, usually avoids taking on missing person cases. “People in Paris are lost all the time, sometimes on purpose,” he says. Still, he can’t resist the challenge of finding Gaspard Bricon, an elderly man who spent his days singing and selling copies of his songs on the Pont Neuf, the city’s oldest bridge. One of Gaspard’s good friends is worried, and Paul feels touched by his concern. Besides, Paul’s well-paying gig of tailing a rich young Austrian diplomat around Paris for the police is pretty dull, and this new case fires up his curiosity. His search takes him to Gaspard’s lodgings, where a piece of crumpled parchment leads him to assume the song peddler was involved in high-level political blackmail. The author’s skillful plotting keeps readers guessing as the mystery expands and transforms during Paul’s investigations through many Parisian neighborhoods. Our detective’s background is equally interesting; his younger sister Aimée...
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A gallery of forthcoming 2019 historical novels set before the 20th century

What I've been finding lately: new historical novels set earlier than the 20th century are getting to be rare beasts. WWII (and to a lesser degree, WWI) is still trending, and fiction evoking the 1950s and '60s is blossoming, too. One advantage of 20th-century settings is that they can seem modern enough to hook in contemporary fiction readers, thus reaching a wide audience beyond the historical fiction crowd.  But what about readers who enjoy, even prefer, an earlier time frame?  This post is for you.  Here are ten upcoming historical releases, with US publication dates in the first half of 2019, and set at least 119 years in the past.  (Also note: small press and indie novels do a great job of covering pre-20th century eras.  As in past years, I'll be doing a special focus on them in March.) A young woman and her farming family face hardship during Ireland's Great Hunger in 1845 County Mayo.  Kensington, Feb 26th. [ see on Goodreads ] In looking into the ...
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The Valentine House by Emma Henderson, an Alpine family saga set in 20th-century France

The Valentine house, a wooden chalet overlooking the valley of Hext in the French Alps, is given the Greek name “Arete” (meaning excellence or virtue) by its owner, Sir Anthony Valentine, who built it in the 19th century. Sir Anthony loves the classics, and he also loves the Haute-Savoie region with a near-erotic passion evoked in his private journals. He and his large family travel to Arete to spend their summers, and local farmers greet their British eccentricities with a mix of fascination and resentment. Their exploits are recounted through the eyes of a French teenager, Mathilde, who becomes a servant at Arete in 1914. A bright peasant girl, her narrative voice is sharp and self-aware. She knows she owes her position to her unattractiveness – Sir Anthony’s wife only hires “uglies,” supposedly to deter his wandering eye – but Mathilde cares “not a jot.” She’s a delight to spend time with, as she observes the Valentines, befriending their granddaughter, Daisy, and accompanying them ...
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The Hundred Wells of Salaga examines women's lives and internal slavery in late 19th-c Ghana

Told with the poetic simplicity of a folk tale, but with the rich detail and scope of an epic, The Hundred Wells of Salaga is a memorable read about a little-known historical subject: indigenous slavery in pre-colonial Ghana, and how it affected the lives of two young women and their families. The lives of Aminah, a teenager from the village of Botu, and Wurche, the only daughter of a lesser chief of Kpembe, begin worlds and many miles apart, but their stories come together midway through. Both heroines are proud and resilient, qualities that carry them through considerable personal turmoil. Aminah, who had used to spend her time daydreaming, selling maasa (millet porridge) to people on the caravan when it passed through Botu, and caring for her younger twin sisters, is taken captive by horsemen along with her siblings and forced to march far from home. The pain and loss she experiences along the way are addressed plainly. Although she’s part of the Gonja royal family and is accordingl...
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