Historical Fiction |
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If you're a fan of historical fiction, you'll know that the genre has enjoyed a revival in recent years. Here are some of the best of the more than 200 titles we've added to our collection in the past several years, representing locales around the world and across the centuries.
- Allende, Isabel. Daughter of Fortune; translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden. (HarperCollins, 1999).
- Adopted into privilege in mid-19th-century Chile, Allende's heroine pursues adventure and personal discovery through encounters with a common sailor and a Chinese herbalist. The story ventures into Gold-Rush California and imperial China.
- Baker, Kevin. Dreamland. (HarperCollins, 1999).
- Turn-of-the-century New York City is the setting for a colorful historical fantasy that reminds some of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime.
- Baldwin, Shauna Singh. What the Body Remembers. (N.A. Talese, 1999).
- In the 1930s as India's independence movement looms larger, a married woman must learn to live with her husband's young second wife in the household.
- Ball, David W. Empires of Sand. (Bantam Books, 1999).
- Family and political conflict against the background of Paris and the Sahara desert at the turn of the last century, featuring the romantic but doomed Taureg swordsmen and their more technologically advanced European rivals.
- Barrett, Andrea. Voyage of the Narwhal. (W.W.Norton, 1998).
- A National Book Award winner makes epic fiction of the polar explorations of Richard Darwin Wells.
- Davenport, Kiana. Song of the Exile. (Ballantine, 1999).
- Personal ambition, war and the internment of Japanese aliens complicate romance between a young Hawaiian woman and her jazz-musician lover in this sweeping novel of the years before statehood.
- Ephron, Amy. White Rose: A Novel = Una Rosa Blanca. (Morrow, 1999).
- On the eve of the Spanish-American War, the passionate young heroine is imprisoned as a revolutionary. When a handsome American compatriot is sent to free her, illicit love adds to the intrigue.
- Godshalk, C. S. Kalimantaan. (Henry Holt, 1998).
- Gideon Ball (model for Conrad's Lord Jim) rules an exotic kingdom on the coast of Borneo, where Victorian culture must coexist uneasily with a violent native society.
- Greenhall, Ken. Lenoir. (Zoland Books, 1998).
- A former slave poses for Rubens's "Four Heads of a Negro;" this picaresque story follows him through Amsterdam and London, with an eye to the complex race relations of the time.
- Huston, Nancy. The Mark of the Angel. (Steerforth Press, 1999).
- Melancholy story of two survivors of Nazi atrocities who find love in Paris, as France pursues a brutal colonial policy in Algeria.
- Jin, Ha. Waiting. (Pantheon, 1999).
- During Mao's Cultural Revolution, a military doctor lives out his life waiting for the resolution of his unconsummated love affair. This won the National Book Award for 1999. ES, FP, PP
- Johnston, Wayne. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. (Doubleday, 1999).
- This fictionalized tale of Joe Smallwood, a scrappy liberal who leads his homeland of Newfoundland into confederation with Canada in 1949, takes in drama, satire, and mystery while painting a memorable portrait of that independent region.
- Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. (HarperFlamingo, 1998).
- Kingsolver's most complex and wide-ranging novel, set in the Congo during the last years of Belgian colonial power.
- Lobo, Tatiana. Assault on Paradise; translated by Asa Zatz. (Curbstone Press, 1998).
- A Costa Rican writer dramatizes the era of the Conquistadors; her Mayan hero encounters plenty of intrigue and action, as well as betrayal and bloody defeat at the hands of the invaders.
- Mallinson, Allan. A Close Run thing : A Novel of Wellington's Army of 1815. (Bantam Books, 1999).
- Told from the viewpoint of a junior officer in the British cavalry, this saga of the Napoleonic Wars incorporates military detail. Patrick O'Brian's naval adventures find their equivalent on land.
- Martin, S. I. Incomparable World. (G. Braziller, 1998).
- Former slaves who fought with British Loyalists against the American colonists end up rogues in London in this historical thriller.
- Matthiessen, Peter. Bone by Bone. (Random House, 1999).
- Last of a trilogy about a ruthless planter-developer of the Gulf Coast of Florida.
- Mount, Ferdinand. Jem (and Sam). (Carroll & Graff, 1999).
- A rather unsavory rival of Samuel Pepys carouses his way across Restoration London.
- Poyer, David. Thunder on the Mountain. (Forge, 1999).
- Labor struggles in the oil fields of Pennsylvania during the Great Depression, as an author of modern naval epics ventures into Steinbeck territory.
- Tapon, Philippe. The Mistress. (Dutton, 1999).
- A Parisian doctor with ties to the Nazis plots with his mistress to keep a buried fortune from his estranged family in this dark-hued thriller.
- Taylor, Mel. The Mitt Man. (Morrow, 1999).
- Linked tales of two grifters, set in a black Southern culture of gospel, blues and jazz.
- Veltfort, Ruhama. The Promised Land. (Milkweed Editions, 1998).
- The son of an Orthodox rabbi and his young wife travel from the shtetl to frontier St. Louis, making a spiritual journey as well.
- Waldo, Anna Lee. Circle of Stones. (St. Martin's Press, 1999).
- Celtic heroine Brenda and her charismatic son become involved in the struggle between Druid and Christian cultures.
Call the Reference Desk at 413-263-6828 ext. 213, your branch library, or use our Askalibrarian service to reserve a book today! |
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