Adult Historical Fiction
These historical fiction books are new to our shelves in the last 30 days (most recent on top).
You may also be interested in what we have On Order in this category.
List
"Zoltan Beck is dying. His devoted but long-suffering sons, Ben and Frank, are trying to prepare themselves and their families for Zoltan's eventual departure...but they can't quite bring themselves to believe that the end is really at hand, and neither c…
"Where once new ideas and beliefs were accepted, now the country’s military dictator, the Shogun, is shutting his country down to any outside influences. Father Joaquim Martinez, who left Portugal to make Hizen Province, Japan, his home, has been tending…
"During the sweltering Roman summer of 1492, Rodrigo Borgia has risen to power as pope. Rodrigo’s eldest son Cesare, forced to follow his father into the church and newly made the Archbishop of Valencia, chafes at his ecclesiastical role and fumes with je…
"This story starts with a family. For now, it is a father and a mother with two sons. One with his father's violence in his blood. One with his mother's artistry. One leaves. One stays. They will be joined by others whose deeds will determine their fate. …
"Graduating from Harvard at the height of World War II, brilliant mathematician Charlie Fisk is assigned to the Manhattan Project. Working with some of the age's greatest scientific minds, including J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard, Ch…
"When respected American jewelry historian, Kate Kirby, receives a call about the Cheapside jewels, she knows she’s on the brink of the experience of a lifetime. But the trip to London forces Kate to explore secrets that have long been buried by her own f…
"Bridget has always been the one to take on the responsibility for looking after her family. With a drunken, violent mother, an unemployed brother who can't stay out of pub brawls and a wayward sister vulnerable to the smooth talk of shady men, it's hardl…
"It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life-her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children…
A tale inspired by the film "Same Time Next Year" follows a man's discovery of his mother's long-term relationship with the husband of a Presidential frontrunner.
"Marisel Vera emerges as a major voice of contemporary fiction with a heart- wrenching novel set in Puerto Rico on the eve of the Spanish-American War. It is 1898, and groups of starving Puerto Ricans, los hambrientos, roam the parched countryside and dus…
"On the eve of World War I, Georgie Hyde-Lees-on her own for the first time-is introduced to the acclaimed poet W. B. Yeats at a soirée in London. Although Yeats is famously eccentric and many years her senior, Georgie is drawn to him, and when he extends…
"For readers of Elena Ferrante and Sally Rooney, a lush, coming-of-age novel set in 1950s Italy that stares into the heart of longing and at the friendships that have the power to save and destroy us. Isabella is beautiful, inscrutable, and popular. Her b…
"While draining a pond during work for the construction of the Stockton to Darlington Railway, George Stevenson's workers discover a female corpse with a dagger stuck between her ribs--could it be that of Lady Beresford, the French wife of a local baron w…
A reimagining of the life of Bonnie Parker traces the experiences of a young woman from a desolate region of Depression-era Texas whose consuming love for Clyde Barrow culminates in a violent and ultimately fatal crime spree.
Over the course of one year at a Connecticut boarding school and a transformative summer in New York City in the 1980s, three young women negotiate friendship, crushes, parties, privilege, and the sexual interest of older men on the journey from innocence…
"Atlantic City, 1934. Every summer, Esther and Joseph Adler rent their house out to vacationers escaping to "America's Playground" and move into the apartment above their bakery. The apartment is where they raised their two daughters, Fannie and Florence,…
A meticulously researched debut by the "Secret Victorianist" blogger follows the scandalous 1843 love affair between a grieving Lydia Robinson of Thorp Green Hall and her son's erratically unconventional tutor, Branwell Brontë.
"The review in the Paris Times in November 1928 is rapturous in its praise of Lucia Joyce's skill and artistry as a dancer. The family has made their home in Paris--where the latest ideas in art, music, and literature converge. Acolytes regularly visit th…
"The Overland Trail, 1853: Naomi May never expected to be widowed at twenty. Eager to leave her grief behind, she sets off with her family for a life out West. On the trail, she forms an instant connection with John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man straddling two…
Escaping from Paris in 1942 after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew, a graduate student finds refuge in a small mountain town, where she forges identity documents to help hundreds of Jewish children flee the Nazis.
In 1926, a diplomat's daughter married to a member of the British aristocracy begins a love affair with Edward, Prince of Wales, but their relationship is upended by the scandal of her twin sister's custody trial.
"This propulsive historical novel intertwines the lives of the Bible's Queen Esther, a senator's wife in the 1970s, and a Brooklyn mother in 2016, whose stories trace surprising and moving parallels across centuries"--Provided by publisher.
Devastated by her 1875 suicide attempt, the sisters of widowed former First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln navigate the consequences of their husbands' choices while advocating for Mary's needs.
"Set during the splendid summer days of 1960s Martha’s Vineyard, this page-turning debut novel pulls back the curtain on one mysterious and wealthy family as seen through the eyes of their nanny—a college student who, while falling in love on the elegant …
"As a young girl growing up in Vienna in the 1930s, Orly has an idyllic childhood filled with music. Her father plays the viola in the Philharmonic, her mother is a well-regarded opera singer, her beloved and charismatic older brother holds the neighborho…
Endearing herself to the British people with her kindness and strength, Elizabeth the Queen Mother, the wife of George VI and mother of a future Elizabeth II, orchestrates Edward VIII's exile while hiding damaging secrets.
""Fans of The Chilbury Ladies' Choir and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society will adore The Jane Austen Society... A charming and memorable debut, which reminds us of the universal language of literature and the power of books to unite and h…
Draws on extensive research and unprecedented access to the Pearl Harbor memorial and museum archives in a high-suspense, historically accurate thriller inspired by the 1941 attack.
"In the spring of 1540, Henry VIII is desperate to be rid of his unappealing German queen, Anna of Kleve. A prematurely aged and ailing forty-nine, with an ever-growing waistline, he casts an amorous eye on a pretty nineteen-year-old brunette, Katheryn Ho…
"One day in the City of Lights. One night in search of lost time. Paris between the wars teems with artists, writers, and musicians, a glittering crucible of genius. But amidst the dazzling creativity of the city's most famous citizens, four regular peopl…
"In the early twentieth century, Lillian Walsh rushes to a reunion after discovering the sister she believed dead is likely alive. But Grace has dreams beyond anything Lillian imagines. Can Lillian set aside her own plans and join her sister in an adventu…
"From the bestselling, award-winning author of Flora and Evensong comes the story of two remarkable women and the complex friendship between them that spans decades. When the dean of Lovegood Junior College for Girls decides to pair Feron Hood with Merry …
"In her fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family in Sepphoris with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, a relentless se…
Raised by unconventional adoptive parents on a Tennessee farm, an orphaned Lakota child pursues a life for herself beyond the violence and dispossession of her past. By the award-wining author of Days Without End.
Uncovering disturbing evidence that her mother did not die in a car accident when her sisters and she were toddlers, a woman on maternity leave pieces together journal entries to uncover harrowing truths about her father.
"In March 1865, the long and bitter War between the States is winding down. Till now, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty thanks to his slight stature, youthful appearance, and utter lack of compunction about bending the truth. Bu…
""A deeply imagined and deeply moving novel. Reading it made me happy and weepy in equally copious amounts." -Karen Joy Fowler For fans of Jo Baker's Longbourn, a witty, poignant novel about Cassandra Austen and her famous sister, Jane. Whoever looked at …
"For readers of The Alice Network and The Lost Girls of Paris, an immersive, heart-pounding debut about a German heiress on the run from British authorities, who discovers dark secrets about her family's past in post-World War II Germany"--Provided by pub…
"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours comes a new novel inspired by little-known historical events: a dramatic story of three young women on a journey in search of family amidst the destruction of the post-Civil War South,…
"An evocative historical novel set in 1930's Indochine, about the American wife of a Michelin heir who journeys to the French colony in the name of family fortune, and the glamorous, tumultuous world she finds herself in-and the truth she may be running f…
A novel set in 1918 Dublin offers a three-day look at a maternity ward during the height of the Great Flu pandemic.
"A thrilling departure: a short, piercing, deeply moving novel about the death of Shakespeare's 11 year old son Hamnet--a name interchangeable with Hamlet in 15th century Britain--and the years leading up to the production of his great play. England, 1580…
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Women of the Silk and The Samurai's Garden comes a gorgeous and evocative historical novel about a Japanese-American family set against the backdrop of Hawai'i's sugar plantations. Daniel Abe, a young doctor …
"Perhaps no man on Earth is more controversial, more hated, or more studied than Adolf Hitler. His exploits and every move are well-documented, from the time he first became chancellor and then dictator of Germany to starting World War II to the systemati…
"American journalist Milly Bennett has covered murders in San Francisco, fires in Hawaii, and a civil war in China, but 1930s Moscow presents her greatest challenge yet. When her young Russian husband is suddenly arrested by the secret police, Milly tries…
"Queen Elizabeth’s spymasters recruit an unlikely agent—the only Muslim in England—for an impossible mission....The year is 1601. Queen Elizabeth I is dying, childless. Her nervous kingdom has no heir. It is a capital crime even to think that Elizabeth wi…
"At eight years old, Shulle has known only life in a small village with her loving but peculiar father. When Uncle Shebna offers shelter in Jerusalem in exchange for Shulle's help tutoring King Manasseh, Judah's five-year-old co-regent who displays the sa…
"What is your name? Where did you come from? And where are you going? In this immersive novel set in the 1840s Britain and France, these questions probe at the essence of what it means to be human. A wet nurse in a lively Scottish household goes by an ass…
"When two brave women flee from the Communist Red Scare, they soon discover that no future is free from the past. Amid the glitz and glamour of 1950s New York, Phoebe Adler pursues her dream of screenwriting. A dream that turns into a living nightmare wh…
"The Orphan Train Saga continues with Treachery, Book Three, Anastasia's story. After an arduous childhood, fraught with poverty and a contentious relationship with her parents, Anastasia finds herself thrust out of her home and living on the streets of N…