Historical Fiction World Literature

Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dance hall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for. Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission, racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever.

July, 1914: In their sunlit Hampshire workshop, Alice Dalton mixes paints for the stained-glass artwork she and Edmund are working on, pausing only to joyfully cradle the soft swell of her stomach. But the looming war threatens her hard-won happiness. A knock at the door announces the arrival of Victor, her estranged brother, returning after six long years in America. But her elation at being reunited is short-lived as she realizes he still hasn’t forgiven her for her part in the heartbreak that sent him abroad.

When Catherine Saxon, an American correspondent reporting on the war in Europe, is found murdered in her London digs, news of her death is concealed by British authorities. Serving as a linchpin between Scotland Yard and the Secret Service, Robert MacFarlane pays a visit to Maisie Dobbs, seeking her help. He is accompanied by an agent from the US Department of Justice - Mark Scott, the American who helped Maisie get out of Hitler’s Munich in 1938. MacFarlane asks Maisie to work with Scott to uncover the truth about Saxon’s death.

Set during the partition of British India in 1947, a time when neighbor was pitted against neighbor and families were torn apart, award-winning author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel brings to life the sweeping story of three sisters caught up in events beyond their control, their unbreakable bond, and their incredible struggle against powerful odds.

Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day.

Norway, 1942. War rages, and, under cover of darkness, Rumi Orlstad and her fellow resistance fighters smuggle British agents, fugitives and supplies across the North Sea into Nazi-occupied territory. One night, when he braves a storm to complete an ill-fated mission, Rumi’s fiancé is lost to the dangerous waters. Broken-hearted, she withdraws from the clandestine group, vowing never to let her loved ones put themselves in the line of fire again.

1950. In the wake of the war, Audrey Clarkson leaves her manor house in England for a fresh start in America with her young son. As a widowed war bride, Audrey needs the support of her American in-laws, whom she has never met. But she arrives to find that her longtime friend Eve Dawson has been impersonating her for the past four years. Unraveling this deception will force Audrey and Eve’s secrets - and the complicated history of their friendship - to the surface.

Esi Edugyan won wide acclaim for her stunning novel Half-Blood Blues - a Man Booker Prize finalist and winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize. In it, 83-year-old Sid Griffiths remembers his time during WWII playing in a Berlin jazz band called the Hot Time Swingers. When jazz music was denounced by the Nazis, Sid and his bandmates fled to Paris - a move that put Hieronymous, the band's brilliantly talented trumpeter, in constant danger due to his Afro-German heritage.

En 1944, les Allemands s'attendent à un débarquement. Mais où ? Les Alliés ont édifié sur la côte, au nord de Londres, une formidable base où s'entassent, entre d'interminables rangées de baraquements, des chars, des avions, des canons - tout cela en toile peinte tendue sur du bois ou en carton-pâte. Il s'agit de faire croire à Hitler que le débarquement se fera dans le Pas-de-Calais et non pas en Normandie.

A finales del siglo XIX, durante la última etapa zarista, los Zucker, perseguidos por su condición de judíos, tienen que abandonar Rusia huyendo del horror y la sinrazón. A su llegada a la Tierra Prometida, Samuel Zucker adquiere las tierras de los Ziad, una familia árabe encabezada por Ahmed.

Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked out streets, illicit liaisons, sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch is the work of a truly brilliant and compelling storyteller. This is the story of four Londoners, three women and a young man with a past, drawn with absolute truth and intimacy.

June, 1916. With a world war raging on the continent, exhausted John H. Watson, MD, is operating on the wounded full-time when his labors are interrupted by a knock on his door, revealing Sherlock Holmes, with a black eye, a missing tooth and a cracked rib. The story he has to tell will set in motion a series of world-changing events in the most consequential case of the detective's career.

London, November 1941. Following the departure of the formidable Henrietta Bird from Woman’s Friend magazine, things are looking up for Emmeline Lake as she takes on the new challenges as a wartime advice columnist. Her relationship with boyfriend Charles is blossoming, while Emmy’s best friend Bunty, still reeling from the very worst of the Blitz, is bravely looking to the future. Together, the friends are determined to Make a Go of It.

Amid the shadows of war, one family faces an impossible choice that will change their lives forever. From best seller Mario Escobar comes a 20th-century historical novel of sacrifice and resilience inspired by Spain’s famed Children of Morelia and the true events that shaped their lives.

From the legendary actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film...and the humble comic books that inspired it. Funny, touching, and wonderfully thought-provoking, while also capturing the changes in America and American culture since World War II.

Barrie Anne Blythe and her aunt Charlotte have always known that the other residents of their small coastal community find them peculiar - two women living alone on the outskirts of town. It is the price of concealing their strange and dangerous family secret. But two events threaten to upend their lives forever. The first is the arrival of a mysterious abandoned baby with a hint of power like their own. The second is the sudden reappearance of Barrie Anne's long-lost husband - who is not quite the man she thought she married.

After renowned fashion designer Cressida Westcott loses both her home and her design house in the London Blitz, she has nowhere to go but the family manor house she fled decades ago. Praying that her niece and nephew will be more hospitable than her brother had been, she arrives with nothing but the clothes she stands in, at a loss as to how to rebuild her business while staying in a quaint country village.

Georgian mansion Wharton Park was a place of childhood solace for Julia Forrester, spending summers in the Norfolk countryside with her beloved grandfather. So after tragedy strikes, she finds herself seeking comfort at Wharton and the allure of its hothouse, once home to exotic flowers from all corners of the globe but now lying abandoned. There she meets the new owner, the charming and magnetic Kit Crawford, whose own past is shrouded in sadness and mystery.

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, two very different magicians emerge to change England's history. In the year 1806, with the Napoleonic Wars raging on land and sea, most people believe magic to be long dead in England—until the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers, and becomes a celebrity overnight. Soon, another practicing magician comes forth: the young, handsome, and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell's student, and they join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic.

1940, Italy. Lili and Esti have been best friends since they first met at university. When Esti’s son Theo is born, they become as close as sisters. While a war seethes across borders, life somehow goes on—until Germany invades Italy, and the friends suddenly find themselves in occupied territory. Esti, older and fiercely self-assured, convinces Lili to join the resistance efforts. But when disaster strikes, a critically wounded Esti asks Lili to take a much bigger step: To go on the run with Theo. Protect him while Esti can’t.