New Books In Historical Fiction

An early American adage proclaimed, "The frontier was heaven for men and dogs―hell for women and mules." Since the 1700s, when his name first appeared in print, Daniel Boone has been synonymous with America's westward expansion and life on the frontier. Traces (Fireside Industries, 2022) is a retelling of Boone's saga through the eyes of his wife, Rebecca, and her two oldest daughters, Susannah and Jemima. Daniel became a mythic figure during his lifetime, but his fame fueled backwoods gossip that bedeviled the Boone women throughout their lives―most notably the widespread suspicion that one of Rebecca's children was fathered by Daniel's younger brother. Traces explores the origins of these rumors, exposes the harsh realities of frontier life, and gives voice to the women whose vibrant lives have been reduced to little more than scattered footnotes within the historical record. Along the path of Daniel's restless wandering, the women were eyewitnesses to the clash of cultures between the settlers and the indi

Spring 1944. A Jewish family is murdered in a remote Ukrainian village. Who were they? Who were the killers? Three generations later, an Israeli woman and a British man of Ukrainian origins set out to find out how their families were implicated in this crime. They also discover how this untold murder has warped their own lives. Narrated by an unnamed historian, and based on fragments of memories, testimonies, diaries, letters and confessions, The Butterfly and the Axe (Amsterdam Publishers, 2023) seeks to fill a gap in the historical record of the Holocaust by reimagining those who were murdered and erased from memory, and to shed light on the transgenerational effects of trauma. Omer Bartov was born in Israel and teaches history in the United States. His mother emigrated from Galicia to Palestine before World War II. Most of the rest of his family were murdered under unknown circumstances in the Holocaust. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium m

Once in a while, a novel comes along that is both different and special. Marvelous (William Morrow, 2023) is such a book. Retellings of fairy tales are not unusual, and some of them are quite good. But here Molly Greeley explores the real-life story that gave rise to one of the best-loved tales, “Beauty and the Beast.” In doing so, she raises issues of inclusion, trust, acceptance, the effects of trauma, and basic humanity—all in a gentle, non-preachy way. Pedro Gonzales, later known as Petrus Gonsalvus or Pierre Sauvage (Pierre the Savage, which itself says a great deal about other people’s views of him), was born on Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, around 1537. We know from early on that he was abandoned by his mother as an infant, presumably because he was born covered in hair—a rare genetic condition that was seen at the time as evidence that a child was the spawn of a devil. His adoptive mother, Isabel, belongs to the indigenous people of Tenerife, the Guanche, whose culture and religion have

Today I talked to Joanna Higgins about her new book In the Fall They Leave: a Novel of the First World War (Regal House Publishing, 2023). Nineteen-year-old pianist Marie-Thérèse has dropped out of her prestigious conservatory in favor of becoming a nurse, much to her mother’s disappointment. As she begins her final year of study, Germany invades Belgium on its way to France. It’s 1914, and Marie-Thérèse’s world is upended by harsh rules and demands that students and staff spy on each other. The matron of the school, who is based on the historical Edith Cavell, is a nurse whose courage saves numbers of Belgians. Her decision to secretly treat all who need help has consequences for everyone on the staff. Marie-Thérèse, while perfecting her ability to bandage wounds and treat patients, becomes friends with German soldiers, falls in love with the two little orphaned girls who’ve been living at the clinic, and risks her life to follow the matron’s courageous defiance of the German army. Joanna Higgins is the auth

The essential contribution of The Woman with the Cure (Berkley Books, 2023) can be summarized in one sentence: like most of its future readers (I assume), I had never before heard of Dorothy Horstmann and her fundamental role in the research that led to the near-eradication of polio, despite having benefited hugely from her work. Throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and into the 1960s, she devoted her considerable talents and endless hours to tracking how polio spread throughout the body, but like the other remarkable women portrayed in this novel, she was forced because of her gender to play second fiddle to Doctors Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, her academic colleagues. Their contributions, of course, were also real and worthy of acclaim, but it was Dr. Horstmann—too often dismissed as “Dottie” or “Dot,” as if she were someone’s secretary—who made the crucial discovery that early in its path from the digestive to the nervous system, the polio virus created antibodies in the blood. That finding made the polio vaccine

Today I talked to C. P. Lesley about Song of the Storyteller (Five Directions Press, 2023).  It’s 1546, and Ivan the Terrible is about to be coronated and married off. Government nobles are given 6 weeks to choose the most beautiful, highborn, fertile, and politically expedient brides from around the country. Before Tsar Ivan makes his choice, 16-year-old Lyuba is forced to go through a series of examinations as a potential bride, but she’s in love with someone else and planning to do everything she can to make herself as unappealing as possible. But anything too obvious could backfire, and her family would pay the price if she was anything but delighted to be a candidate. CP Lesley was born in England and lived in the states from the age of eleven. She earned a PhD in Russian History from Stanford and has always loved telling stories. Author of The Not Exactly Scarlet Pimpernel, The Golden Lynx, The Winged Horse, The Swan Princess, The Vermilion Bird, and The Shattered Drum (Five Directions Press), she is cu

It is the very end of the eighteenth century, and Pandora Blake—known as Dora—lives at the edge of London society. Despite the opposition of her obnoxious uncle Hezekiah and his live-in housekeeper/mistress Lottie, neither of whom has much interest in their orphaned charge, Dora has a dream. She wants to sketch jewelry designs that will appeal to the beauties of the haut ton, in the process earning Dora a livelihood sufficient to free her from her family’s antique shop, now in decline due to Hezekiah’s mismanagement. To that end, Dora spends hours in her attic bedchamber drawing with only her beloved magpie, Hermes, for company. Even before we meet Dora in this enchanting yet troubling tale, we have encountered an unnamed diver bent on retrieving the cargo from a scuttered ship somewhere in the Mediterranean. It soon becomes clear that the mysterious cargo includes a massive Greek vase (more properly, a pithos, used for storing wine or grain), which Hezekiah acquires, together with a shipment of Greek pottery

In 1934, tens of thousands of Communist guerillas fled Jiangxi, in an extended retreat through hazardous terrain to Shaanxi in the north, while under fire from their Nationalist enemies. The Long March, as it became to be known, helped build the legend of the Chinese Communist Party, and of its leader Mao. While on the Long March, Mao had a daughter, who was left behind to live with a local family due to the trek’s dangers That event inspired Michael X. Wang’s debut novel Lost in the Long March (Overlook Press, 2022), about one couple who faced a similar decision–whether to leave their child behind–and that decision’s repercussions decades later. In this interview, Michael and I talk about the Long March, what makes it a great setting for a novel, and how its story aligns with many other family stories from modern China. Michael X. Wang was born in Fenyang, a small coal-mining city in China’s mountainous Shanxi province. His short story collection, Further News of Defeat (Autumn House Press: 2020), won the 20

From Lucrezia Borgia to Marlene Dietrich, Empress Marie Fyodorovna of Russia, and most recently the actress Sarah Bernhardt, C. W. Gortner has made a career out of finding strong, fascinating, real-life heroines for his novels. In The American Adventuress (William Morrow, 2022), he focuses his attention on Jennie Jerome, the mother of Winston Churchill. From the moment we first meet her as a sassy and defiant twelve-year-old schoolgirl, Jennie charts her own course—to the consternation of her more conventional but in some ways wiser mother. Her father—an entrepreneur hovering on the edge of elite New York society—adores and supports this second daughter whose character so resembles his own, but some shady business dealings and a long-term affair with Jennie’s piano teacher eventually undermine his marriage. Jennie’s mother flees with her three daughters to Paris, where the girls complete their education. Then the Franco-Prussian War begins, and the family moves to London and safety. There Jennie makes the acq

In her novels, Nicola Cornick blends a modern perspective with a historical mystery and a paranormal connection between the two. The Winter Garden (Graydon House Books, 2022) revolves around the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605, known to every British schoolchild as the origin of Guy Fawkes Day, celebrated on November 5 with fireworks, bonfires, and bobbing for apples, among other things. In the contemporary portion of the novel, Lucy, an internationally renowned concert violinist, has suffered a health crisis that strips her of her ability to perform. Facing the death of her career, she takes the opportunity to recover at a rural English estate. There she experiences bizarre dreams in which she appears to inhabit the body of a Tudor-era woman named Catherine, even as she is increasingly pulled into a relationship with Finn, an archeologist working on the gardens of the estate. Alongside this modern story, we follow the events leading up to the Gunpowder Plot, told by Anne Catesby, the mother of the main consp

Today I talked to Mariah Fredericks about her new novel The Lindbergh Nanny (Minotaur Books, 2022). The kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh, Jr in 1932 shocked the country and made international headlines. The famous Charles Lindbergh Sr became an American hero after successfully flying solo across the Atlantic. He was married to the wealthy and beautiful Anne Morrow Lindbergh, also a pilot. Their son Charles Lindbergh, Jr was suddenly kidnapped from his family home in New Jersey, and the case made international headlines. The parents were out on the night of the kidnapping, but the nanny was home. After the baby disappeared from his bed, that nanny, Betty Gow, became a prime suspect, and her life was never the same. She was known thereafter as the Lindbergh Nanny. Mariah Fredericks is the author of the Jane Prescott mystery series, set in 1910s New York and nominated twice for the Mary Higgins Clark award. She was born and raised in New York City, graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history and was th

Today I talked to Karen Odden about her new book Under a Veiled Moon (Crooked Lane Books, 2022). When the Princess Alice pleasure boat collides with a huge iron-hulled cargo ship on the Thames River, it’s split in half, and only 130 of the 650 passengers and crew members survive. It’s 1878, and clues point to sabotage by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which has already used violence in hopes of restoring Home Rule. Inspector Michael Corravan, who was born in Ireland, orphaned, and raised in London by an Irish family, knows that the British will never allow Home Rule in Ireland if the IRB is to blame for the disaster. Meanwhile, violence is rising in his old neighborhood, and Colin Doyle, the youngest of his adopted family, has joined one of the violent Irish gangs. He refuses Corravan’s offer of help, which puts the entire family in danger. With support from colleagues, his good friends Mr. Gordon Stiles and Mrs. Belinda Gale, Inspector Corravan presses on to uncover the truth. KAREN ODDEN received her Ph.

London, 1679. Combining the color and adventure of Alexandre Dumas and the thrills of Frederick Forsyth, early scientists Harry Hunt and Robert Hooke of the Royal Society stumble onto a plot to kill the Queen of England. The Poison Machine (Melville House, 2022) is a nail-biting and brilliantly imagined historical thriller that will delight readers of its critically acclaimed predecessor, The Bloodless Boy. Tune in as we speak with Robert J. Lloyd about his recent novel set in Restoration England, The Poison Machine.  Robert J. Lloyd, after a twenty-year career as a secondary school teacher, has returned to painting and writing, and is now working on the third book in the Hunt and Hooke series. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the author of The Tabernacle Pre-Figured: Cosmic Mountain Ideology in Genesis and Exodus(Peeters, 2012), Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord?: A Biblical Theology of Leviticus(IVP Academic, 2015), and Exodus Old

Cora’s Kitchen by Kimberly Garrett Brown (Inanna Publications 2022) is a striking novel told in letters, journal entries, and a series of stories written by an educated young Black mother, wife, and librarian. Cora, who works at Harlem’s 135th Street library, reads a powerful poem by the young Langston Hughes, who begins to offer advice about her own writing. She’s awakened to thoughts about society and the role of women, prejudice, and the plight of Black women. Cora is ambitious, but loyal, and stepping in to help a family member leads to a series of events that could destroy her life. She’s ultimately surprised to find herself longing to be back in her tiny apartment cooking for her own family, raising her kids, and working in the library stacks. The experience gives her the fortitude to plunge ahead as a writer. KIMBERLY GARRETT BROWN is Publisher and Executive Editor of Minerva Rising Press. Her work has appeared in Black Lives Have Always Mattered: A Collection of Essays, Poems and Personal Narratives,

Agatha Christie hardly needs an introduction. The Queen of Mystery has reigned since the 1920s, and the recent release of films based on her books shows that her popularity is in no danger of waning anytime soon. It takes a certain audacity to create an amateur detective who, while managing Christie’s household, outpaces her employer in solving crimes. But Colleen Cambridge pulls off this task with aplomb. In a nod to one of Christie’s best-known and most highly regarded novels, the series opens with a body in the library at Mallowan Hall, the rural estate where the author lives with her second husband. Phyllida—who admires Hercule Poirot, Christie’s most famous creation—seeks to apply his principles of detection to that dead body in the library, and she succeeds admirably. When the second book, A Trace of Poison (Kensington Publishing, 2022), begins, Phyllida is organizing a village celebration aimed at raising the necessary funds to repair the roof of an orphanage run by the local Catholic church. Four famo

Today I talked to Mally Becker about her new book The Counterfeit Wife: A Revolutionary War Mystery (Level Best Books, 2022). Philadelphia, June 1780. George Washington's two least likely spies return, masquerading as husband and wife as they search for traitors in Philadelphia. Months have passed since young widow Becca Parcell and former printer Daniel Alloway foiled a plot that threatened the new nation. But independence is still a distant dream, and General Washington can't afford more unrest, not with food prices rising daily and the value of money falling just as fast. At the General's request, Becca and Daniel travel to Philadelphia to track down traitors who are flooding the city with counterfeit money. Searching for clues, Becca befriends the wealthiest women in town, the members of the Ladies Association of Philadelphia, while Daniel seeks information from the city's printers. But their straightforward mission quickly grows personal and deadly as a half-remembered woman from Becca's childhood is arr

Set during the Ming Dynasty that ruled over China, The Empire's Bladesmen: Forbidden Relics (Amored History, 2021) by Clay Vagrant is a gripping story of adventure, secret assassins, and mythic creatures. This interview will include discussions not only about the novel itself, but many of the historical and fantasy elements related to Chinese history and traditional folklore. Clay Vagrant is an Asian American millennial who loves martial arts, military history and civilizations, and then reading and writing about them. He trains in the martial arts, reads books and plays video games often. He helped start the Armored History brand dedicated to students and fans of the study of world military history and historical fantasy genres. He does all his own stunts, artwork, design, and illustrations for book covers, marketing materials, and promotional media kits. Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Analysis, Big History, Historical Sociology, War studies, a

Today I talked to Karen Heenan about Coming Apart: A Novel of the Great Depression (2022). Ava has always been poor, so she doesn't think the Great Depression will change anything. But when her mother dies and her coal miner husband loses his job, Ava's certainty falters. The last thing she needs is a letter from her estranged sister, asking for the impossible. Claire has everything she could ever want, except the child she promised her husband. When her sister's life falls apart, she reaches out to help - and finds the missing piece of her own marriage. With everything at stake, Ava must choose: give up one child to save the rest or keep the family together and risk losing it all? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

Miss del Río (Graydon House Books, 2022) explores the biography of a real-life actress, Dolores del Río, who became a silent movie star in Hollywood, navigated the transition to talkies, and eventually played a role in the establishment of the film industry in her home country of Mexico. The story plays out against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, which influences the lives of the characters in ways both direct and subtle. Add to all this a dramatic tale of the fictional María Amparo (Mara)—Dolores’s hairdresser, confidante, and wry chronicler—and you have a novel that breaks new ground in interesting ways. The novel opens with Mara late in life, remembering a friend whose commemoration Mara herself is too old and frail to attend. From there, we move back to the outbreak of the Mexican revolution, with Mara a small child being dragged through the streets by her caretaker, a rough woman known as Tía Emi throughout the book. Through Mara’s eyes, we see her first encounter and budding relationship (whethe

In Three Muses (Regal House Publishing, 2022) by Martha Toll, John Curtin survives the Holocaust by singing for the entertainment of the kommendant who murdered his family. He’s sent to America, probably by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, to be adopted by a family whose son was killed fighting the war. The nourishment, love, and kindness of his new parents allows him to thrive. Years later, John is forced by Dr Roth to relive the worst moments of his life during therapy he’s required to do as part of his psychiatric training. Meanwhile, after seven-year-old Katherine loses her mother, her aunt enrolls her in ballet classes, never realizing how it will change Katherine’s life. The first thing to change is her name – Boris Yanakov, the director and choreographer, changes her name to the more Russian-sounding Katya Symanova. He seduces Katya and makes her a star, but also controls her every movement. When John sees Katya perform in Paris in 1963, he’s bewitched and can’t stop thinking about her. The next time