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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 ...

The Secret

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.)


The Irishman's Daughter by V S Alexander

A young woman and her farming family face hardship during Ireland's Great Hunger in 1845 County Mayo.  Kensington, Feb 26th. [see on Goodreads]


The Almanack by Martine Bailey

In looking into the mystery of her mother's drowning death, a young woman in 18th-century England discovers curious notes she'd left in her almanack.  Severn House, May. [see on Goodreads]

Courting Mr Lincoln by Louis Bayard

A literary portrait of the young Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, in the 1840s, seen through the eyes of his future wife, Mary Todd, and his best friend, Joshua Speed.  Algonquin, April. [see on Goodreads]


An Unconditional Freedom by Alyssa Cole

The third book in Cole's award-winning Loyal League series follows a newly freed Black man, an enterprising young woman, and their dangerous lives as covert spies for the Union during the Civil War. Kensington, February 29. [see on Goodreads]


The Parting Glass by Gina Marie Guadgnino

Mary Ballard, a lady's maid to wealthy Charlotte Walden in 1820s New York City, holds many secrets, including her Irish heritage and her secret passion for her mistress.  Atria, March. [see on Goodreads]


Woman 99 by Greer Macallister

A young woman in late 19th-century San Francisco goes undercover in an insane asylum to rescue her sister, who their parents had unjustly placed there.  Sourcebooks, March. [see on Goodreads]


The Burning Chambers by Kate Mosse

Heading further back in time, Kate Mosse's newest epic, set in mid-16th-century France during its religious wars, opens as a young woman receives a mysterious note. Minotaur, June. [see on Goodreads]

Blackberry and Wild Rose by Sonia Velton

This debut features two ambitious young women in the Spitalfields district of mid-18th-century London, where Huguenot silk-weavers ply their trade and seek to perfect their designs.  Blackstone, May. [see on Goodreads]


The Lost History of Dreams by Kris Waldherr

A Victorian gothic mystery set in the world of post-mortem photography, romantic poetry, ghosts, and lost love.  Atria, April. [see on Goodreads]


Anna of Kleve by Alison Weir

A new look at Henry VIII's fourth queen, and the newest in Weir's Six Tudor Queens series; the title refers to her as she would have called herself. Ballantine, May. [see on Goodreads]

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The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis, a Gothic mystery-adventure with the Brontë sisters on the case

The Brontë sisters have joined the stable of historical characters appearing as sleuths. Even though – as with other famous folks cast into detective mode – I didn’t believe for a second that this could’ve happened in real life, it was entertaining to imagine “what if.” Bella Ellis, the Brontë-esque pseudonym adopted by author Rowan Coleman, sets her series debut during the brief period that Charlotte, Emily, and Anne lived together at Haworth Parsonage, after their studies and periods of employment ended, and before they embarked upon their masterpieces. In 1845 Yorkshire, the trio learn, via rumors heard by their troubled brother, Branwell, that a young wife and mother, Elizabeth Chester, has vanished from home – leaving behind a baby and stepchild and a blood-soaked mess in her bedchamber. The lurid details make it unlikely Mrs Chester could still be alive. Mattie French, a former classmate of Charlotte’s from their dreadful days at the Cowan School, is the Chesters’ governess, whi...

A visual preview of the winter 2018-19 season in historical fiction

The winter season is nearly upon us!  What historical novels are you looking forward to over the next few months?  Here are a dozen that caught my attention. What they offer: less familiar settings, new perspectives, and/or intriguing characters.  I haven't read any of these yet but am looking forward to them all. The story of two women, a child, a difficult journey, and the aftermath of war, set in Spain and southern France at the end of WWII.  Now this is an eye-catching cover. Lake Union, February 2019. [ see on Goodreads ] Secrets surround the marshy English landscape where a 10-year old girl arrives in 1939 to meet the couple who will adopt her. Her father's rescue of a downed German airman spurs a chain of events that haunt her, decades later, as an old woman. Readers in the UK can find it under the title Call of the Curlew . Tin House, January 2019. [ see on Goodreads ] A new novel set to reveal a little-known story about America's first president: his relatio...

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes, a novel about books, dedication, and female friendship during the Depression years

Books provide people with education and entertainment; they change lives as they introduce different worlds and unfamiliar experiences. During the Depression, the women who transported books in their horses’ saddlebags to isolated Kentucky mountain residents, in all seasons, as part of the WPA’s Pack Horse Library Initiative provided a lifeline of literacy to their audiences. Hearing about this unique job after a dull church service, Alice Van Cleve grows intrigued and immediately volunteers to join. After getting swept off her feet by Bennett Van Cleve, a burly, handsome Kentuckian visiting her native England, Alice feels stifled by the insularity in her new home of Baileyville, a small Appalachian town, and surprised by her new husband’s unexpected aloofness. Alice had never fit in at home, and with her clipped British accent and dislike for frivolous social pursuits, she’s an outsider in Kentucky, too. She finds an unofficial new family with the four other pack-horse librarians, inc...

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