Historical Fiction American Literature

Daughter of New York financier Leonard Jerome, Jennie was born into wealth—and scandal. Upon her parents’ separation, her mother took Jennie and her sisters to Paris, where Mrs. Jerome was determined to marry her daughters into the most elite families. The glamorous city became their tumultuous finishing school until it fell to revolt.

Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to. That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor.

Best-selling writing team and archaeologists W. Michael and Kathleen O’Neal Gear offer this compelling second novel in their Battle for America series. In 1539, Black Shell, his wife Pearl Hand, and their fellow exiles try to make a stand against the invasion of the Kristianos and their leader Hernando de Soto. But de Soto doesn’t plan to back down easily.

Mary Mae Clark has learned the hard way not to trust what a man says. Broken promises have made her wary, and now she only wants to return to Santa Fe to help her friend Sophia keep her wee son. Warren Russell has been freighting on the Trail for four years. He likes it that way. No ties. No family. No love. He doesn't deserve it after his neglect of his wife and small son resulted in their deaths. But the accidental death of his best friend on the trail leaves Warren as guardian to the man's 10-year-old niece, Polly.

Lady Audley is universally adored: Beautiful, kind and charming, she enamors all whom she meets. It is not until the strange disappearance of widower George Talboys that her behavior takes an odd turn. George's friend, Robert Audley, Lady Audley's nephew-in-law, is on the case; an upper-class layabout turned detective, he is determined to get to the bottom of things.

The narrator of this beautiful, often disquieting novel is a young Native American man living on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. Sensitive and self-destructive, he searches for something that will bind him to the lands of his ancestors but is haunted by personal tragedy, the dissolution of his once proud heritage, and Montana's vast emptiness. Winter in the Blood is an evocative and unforgettable work of literature that will continue to move and inspire anyone who encounters it.

Twelve-year-old Marwand's memories from his previous visit to Afghanistan six years ago center on his contentious relationship with Budabash, the terrifying but beloved dog who guards his extended family's compound in the rural village of Logar. But eager for an ally in this place that is meant to be "home", Marwand misreads his reunion with the dog and approaches Budabash the way he would any pet on his American suburban block—and the results are disastrous: Marwand loses a finger, and Budabash escapes into the night.

Junie Kim just wants to fit in. So she keeps her head down and tries not to draw attention to herself. But when racist graffiti appears at her middle school, Junie must decide between staying silent or speaking out. Then Junie’s history teacher assigns a project and Junie decides to interview her grandparents, learning about their unbelievable experiences as kids during the Korean War. Junie comes to admire her grandma’s fierce determination to overcome impossible odds, and her grandpa’s unwavering compassion during wartime.

Here is Gayl Jones' classic novel, the tale of blues singer Ursa, consumed by her hatred of the 19th-century slave master who fathered both her grandmother and mother.

More than 20,000 American Indians served in the Civil War, yet their stories have often been left out of the history books. In Deadly Aim, Sally M. Walker explores the extraordinary lives of Michigan’s Anishinaabe sharpshooters. These brave soldiers served with honor and heroism in the line of duty, despite enduring broken treaties, loss of tribal lands, and racism.

Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves is an origin story in the true American tradition. Before Bass Reeves could stake his claim as the most successful nineteenth-century American lawman, arresting more outlaws than any other deputy during his thirty-two-year career as a deputy US marshal in some of the most dangerous regions of the Wild West, he was a slave. After a childhood picking cotton, Reeves became an expert marksman under his master's tutelage, winning shooting contests throughout the region. His skill had serious implications, however, as the Civil War broke out.

How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways.

For 12-year-old Ernest Young, a charity student at a boarding school, the chance to go to the World's Fair feels like a gift. But only once he's there, amid the exotic exhibits, fireworks, and Ferris wheels, does he discover that he is the one who is actually the prize. The half-Chinese orphan is astounded to learn he will be raffled off - a healthy boy "to a good home". The winning ticket belongs to the flamboyant madam of a high-class brothel, famous for educating her girls.

The glaciers of the Sierra Nevada are melting, destroying the habitat of the mastodons, creating the rich land that will become California. The coastal people struggle to understand the changing world around them: Their seer Sunchaser has lost his way to the Spirit World and mammoths continue to disappear. When a beautiful woman arrives, fleeing from her abusive husband, the people know what they must do - for if the Spirits are already taking the animals away, what will happen if they shelter a stranger?

Dusty McCabe fights for his life after he is taken down by a sniper, and Jack finds himself defending Judge Mack who has been accused of murder. It all seems to tie into the return of Hiram McCabe, Johnny's notorious nephew, and to the return of the greatest enemy the family has ever faced. The McCabes are a family that holds together no matter the hardship, but even for them, life may never be the same again.

García Márquez construyó, en El otoño del patriarca, una maquinaria narrativa perfecta que desgrana una historia universal -la agonía y muerte de un dictador- en forma cíclica, experimental y real al mismo tiempo, en seis bloques narrativos sin diálogos, sin puntos y aparte, repitiendo una anécdota siempre igual y siempre distinta, acumulando hechos y descripciones deslumbrantes.

A mother and daughter negotiate the Oregon Trail with grisly results; an elementary teacher watches the carnage of the Challenger explosion spill over into her own classroom. A possible prospector traveling west is drawn to an isolated inn where no one walks away hungry; a 1950s housewife shares the gruesome repertoire of behavior expected of a proper lady. Prohibition and women’s suffrage, the Civil War and the Vietnam War, the JFK assassination conspiracy and the Y2K hysteria.

For more than 17 years, Lin Kong has been in love with an educated, modern woman, Manna Wu. But back in the traditional world of his home village lives the wife his family chose for him when he was young - a touchingly loyal woman, whom he repeatedly visits in order to ask for a divorce. In a culture in which the ancient ties of tradition and family still hold sway and where adultery discovered by the Party can ruin lives forever, Lin's love is stretched taut by the passing years.

Japan, 1709. Amid the ever-treacherous intrigue in the court, Sano Ichiro has been demoted from chamberlain to a lowly patrol guard. His relationship with his wife Reiko is in tatters, and a bizarre new alliance between his two enemies Yanagisawa and Lord Ienobu has left him puzzled and wary. Then a harrowing, almost inconceivable crime takes place. In his own palace, the shogun is stabbed with a fan made of painted silk with sharp-pointed iron ribs.

Headstrong Coraline Baxter has worked all her life to be more than the spoiled socialite others expect. When her beloved stepfather's bank is threatened by the Panic of 1893, she makes a deal with arrogant entrepreneur Cash Kincaid, who has been pressuring her to marry him. If she can climb Mount Rainier, he will bail out the bank. All Cora needs is a guide to get her to the top.