Staff Picks: New Historical Fiction at AADL
by eapearce
Historical fiction remains one of the most popular genres for local readers! Titles in the genre offer readers the opportunity to learn more about past events, especially ones you’re not familiar with, often in a less-dense manner than non-fiction books about the same events might provide. If you’re looking for your next historical fiction read, check out one of these newly added titles to the library collection and add yourself to the holds list.
The Berlin Letters, by Katherine Reay | Request Now
The Cold War is coming to a close and CIA codebreaker Luisa Voekler is frustrated. Since a young girl, she’s always enjoyed using her logical, quick mind to solve puzzles and crack codes. She expected to move up quickly in the CIA, but while her colleagues are working hard to complete assignments that will hopefully finally bring the Cold War to an end, Luisa is stuck still cracking leftover codes from back during World War II. When she analyzes a letter with symbols she recognizes from her childhood, though, something clicks into place and she begins to wonder if her long-lost father is not, in fact, dead after all, as she’s always thought. Determined to figure out the truth, Luisa travels East Germany, determined to get her father out–if he’s still alive. As the book races toward the climactic fall of the Berlin Wall, readers journey with Luisa to the heart of Berlin to experience the monumental moment with her, and to hopefully share in her discovery of answers to questions she has had her whole life. This book includes book discussion questions at the end, making it a good fit for book clubs!
Flight of the Wild Swan, by Melissa Pritchard | Request Now
This new story of Florence Nightingale has been receiving lots of positive reviews. Much of Florence’s story has been obscured by legend and guesswork, and Pritchard’s new interpretation lends humanity and nuance to the historical figure. Growing up, Florence is thought to be aloof and obstinate, though her father encourages her intellect. Desperate to be a nurse, her parents refuse to allow her to study the profession, believing it to be beneath their status. Uninterested in anything else, Florence does little more than despair for over a decade. Finally, her parents relent and Florence becomes an adept medical administrator by the age of 30. In 1854, Family friend Sidney Herbert, the British Secretary of War, allows Florence to lead a coalition of nurses to Constantinople to reform a military hospital (Britain had been fighting Russian forces in the Crimea for years). When Florence and her fellow nurses arrive, they discover the medical institution in shambles, with many soldiers dying of diseases contracted in the hospital rather than of injuries sustained in battle. Florence springs to work and the rest, as they say, is history. Readers interested in early medicine and Florence’s story will love this new novel.
The Phoenix Bride, by Natasha Siegel | Request Now
London, 1666: Young Cecelia Thorowgood has just lost her beloved husband to the plague and has fallen into a deep depression. She has moved into her sister Margaret’s dreary townhouse and Margaret has hired a cadre of doctors to try and heal Cecelia. Their scalpels and crude techniques do nothing but make her worse. Desperate, Margaret hires foreign-born Jewish physician David Mendes to try and help. Mendes fled Portugal to England to practice medicine, but even in London Jews at the time are barely tolerated. Dr. Mendes’ tinctures help Cecelia some, but it is their growing friendship that truly begins to heal her heart. As the two begin to fall in love, Margaret works to keep them apart, determined to marry Cecelia to a family friend of good English blood. When the Great Fire of London begins to burn, Cecelia and David’s love is truly put to the test. This exciting and moving story has been praised for its portrayal of diverse characters that are often overlooked in historical fiction and romance.
All the World Beside, by Garrad Conley | Request Now
Garrad Conley is the author of the memoir Boy Erased, and he’s now turned to historical fiction to tell a unique story. The year is 1730 in Puritan Massachusetts and a reverend and a doctor have begun a queer love affair. The two met when the doctor successfully treated the reverend’s son during a frightening illness. The love between the two is, of course, deeply forbidden at the time, and they must go to great lengths to keep it a secret. While theirs is the story at the core of the novel, other individuals, including the reverend’s daughter, Sarah, and the ill son in question are fleshed out characters of their own. Conley helpful includes an author’s note about his research into 18th century gay life, which gives excellent context to the confusion and fear that the two men experience over their feelings for one another. This is a unique story about a little-discussed experience in American history.
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