Historical fiction picks at BookExpo 2017

Here’s my latest annual guide to BookExpo (formerly BEA) for the historical fiction reader. Please check back around a week before showtime for the most current updates (new entries will be labeled ~new~).

This post was last updated on May 26th and is based on BookExpo’s autographing schedule, PW's galleys to grab list, publishers' listings, and Library Journal's galley and signing guide. Updates are welcome. This information is correct as far as I’m aware, but please cross-check these dates/times with the BEA site and/or program book to avoid possible disappointment.

~Author Signings~

Thursday, June 1st

10:00-11:00am, Booth 1921 (Penguin Random House)
Jamie Ford, Love and Other Consolation Prizes (literary fiction about a "boy whose life is transformed at Seattle's epic 1909 World's Fair"; Ballantine, Sept.)

10:00-10:30am, Booth 2831
Rachel Hauck, The Writing Desk (parallel narratives involving a modern-day author and an aspiring writer born into a wealthy family during the Gilded Age; Zondervan, July).

10:30-11:30am, Table 4
Betsy Carter, We Were Strangers Once (immigrant life in 1930s NYC; Grand Central, Sept.)

10:30-11:30am, Table 15

Ellen Marie Wiseman, The Life She Was Given (women’s lives and family secrets involving a traveling circus, moving from the ‘30s through the ‘50s; Kensington, Aug.)

11:00-11:30am, Booth 2554
Bradford Morrow, The Prague Sonata (epic, decades-spanning novel surrounding the manuscript for a long-lost sonata; Atlantic Monthly, Oct.)

11:00-11:30am, Table 2
Joseph Kanon, Defectors (thriller involving "defected American spies in Moscow during the height of the Cold War"; Atria, June).

11:00am, Booth 1932 (Soho)
~new~ Sujata Massey, The Widows of Malabar Hill  (1st in new mystery series about a female lawyer in 1920s Bombay; Jan. 2018.)

11:30-noon, Table 15
Barbara Lynn-Davis, Casanova's Secret ("tale of lush desire and risk" set in 18th-c Venice; Kensington, Aug.)

1:00-2:00pm, Table 1
Adriana Trigiani, Kiss Carlo (an Italian-American family in the post-WWII years; Harper, June).

1:30-2:30pm, Booth 2521 (Sourcebooks)
Marie Benedict, Carnegie’s Maid (an Irish immigrant maid inspires Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropy; Sourcebooks, Jan. 2018.)

1:30-2:00pm, Table 15
Susan Holloway Scott, I, Eliza Hamilton (first-person narrative of Alexander Hamilton's wife, Eliza; Kensington, Oct.)

2:00-2:30pm, Table 11
Fiona Davis, The Address (secrets of a famous NYC residence; multi-period novel set in 1884 and 1985; Dutton, Aug.)

2:00-2:30pm, Booth 2833 (HarperCollins)
Eleanor Henderson, The Twelve-Mile Straight (literary epic set in rural Georgia during the Depression; Ecco, Sept.)

~new~ 2:30pm, Booth 2539 (Midpoint Trade)
Sherry Ficklin, The Canary Club (YA novel about "star-crossed lovers in gritty Prohibition-era New York"; Crimson Tree, Oct.)

2:30-3:30pm, Booth 1921 (Penguin Random House)
Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours (multi-period novel, based on the true story of the Georgia Tann child trafficking scandal in the ‘30s South; Ballantine, June.)

3:30-4:00pm, Table 6
Brendan Mathews, The World of Tomorrow (“love, blackmail, and betrayal culminating in an assassination plot, set in prewar New York”; Little, Brown, Sept.)

Friday, June 2

9:00-10:00am, Booth 1921 (Penguin Random House)
Melanie Benjamin, The Girls in the Picture (the creative partnership between Hollywood notables screenwriter Frances Marion and superstar Mary Pickford; Delacorte, Jan. 2018.)

10:00-10:30am, Table 15
Sophfronia Scott, Unforgivable Love (a retelling of Dangerous Liaisons set in 1940s Harlem and Westchester County; William Morrow, Sept.)

10:30-11:00am, Table 14
Linnea Hartsuyker, The Half-Drowned King (epic about a brother and sister in Viking-era Norway, based on characters from the Norwegian sagas; Harper, Aug.)

11:00-11:30am, Table 4
Sharyn McCrumb, The Unquiet Grave (the legend of the Greenbriar Ghost in late 19th-century West Virginia; Atria, June.)

11:30-12:00pm, Table 4
Taylor Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (a film icon’s scandalous 20th-century life; Atria, June)

12pm, Booth 1420 (Simon & Schuster)
~new~ Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach (literary epic set in WWII NYC)

1:00-2:00pm, Table 15
Christina Baker Kline, A Piece of the World (literary novel about Christina Olson, who was depicted in Andrew Wyeth’s portrait Christina’s World; William Morrow, Feb.)

2:00-2:30pm, Table 6
Christina Baker Kline, Orphan Train Girl (the bestselling Orphan Train retold for a younger audience; Harper, May.)

2:00-2:30pm, Table 15
Sarah MacLean, The Day of the Duchess (Regency-era historical romance; Avon, June.)

3:00-3:30pm, Table 14
Eloisa James, Wilde in Love (Regency-era historical romance about a nobleman who's a celebrity; Avon, Oct.)

~Galleys to Grab~

This section excludes the author signings mentioned above.

Algonquin (Booth 2807)
~new~ Robert Olmstead, Savage Country (a widow in the post-Civil War West takes over a buffalo hunt)

Bloomsbury (Booth 3003)
Natasha Pulley, The Bedlam Stacks (Victorian-era historical fantasy; Aug.)

Grove Atlantic (Booth 2554)
Sarah Schmidt, See What I Have Done (novel of Lizzie Borden and the infamous murders; Aug.)

Hachette (Booth 2502-03)
Hannah Kent, The Good People (three women in 19th-c rural Ireland try to rescue a child in danger; Little, Brown, Sept.)
~new~ Louisa Morgan, A Secret History of Witches (multi-generational saga of witchy women, spanning the 19th and 20th centuries; Orbit, Sept.)

HarperCollins (Booth 2833)
~new~ Wiley Cash, The Last Ballad (story of labor activist Ella May Wiggins in '20s NC; Oct.) - giveaway 6/2, 2pm
~new~ Sarah Miller, Caroline (about "Ma" from the Little House books; Sept.) - giveaway 6/2, 2pm
Devin Murphy, The Boat Runner (a young Dutchman coming of age during WWII; Sept.) - giveaway 6/2, 12:30pm

Macmillan (Booth 3008-09)
Alice McDermott, The Ninth Hour (Irish-Americans in the '40s and '50s; FSG, Sept.)

Also see the following giveaways at the Macmillan booth, which are set for specific times, per their website:

6/1, 1:45pm
Andrew Gross, The Saboteur – advance listening copy (audiobook; WWII thriller about the Norwegian resistance; Minotaur, Sept).  Note the 12:00pm ticket drop at the booth to receive this galley giveaway later.

6/1, 3:00pm
Jim Fergus, The Vengeance of Mothers (sequel to One Thousand White Women, set in the West in the 1870s; St. Martin's, Sept.)  Note the 12:00pm ticket drop at the booth to receive this galley giveaway.

6/1, 4:15pm
Daren Wang, The Hidden Light of Northern Fires (Civil War-era story about "the little-known, true history of the only secessionist town north of the Mason Dixon Line"; Thomas Dunne, Aug). Note the 12:00pm ticket drop at the booth to receive this galley giveaway.

Overlook (Booth 1628)
~new~ Dennis Glover, The Last Man in Europe (George Orwell's writing of 1984) - galley giveaway on Thursday 6/1, 11am

Penguin Random House (Booth 1921)
John Boyne, The Heart's Invisible Furies (one man's life in postwar Ireland; Hogarth, Aug.)

Simon & Schuster (Booth 1420-21)
~new~ Thomas Mullen, Lightning Men (sequel to Darktown, crime fiction set in a racially divided 1950s Atlanta)
~new~ Maja Lunde, The History of Bees (literary multi-period novel following three generations of beekeepers in the past, present, and future)

Soho (Booth 1932)
~new~ James R. Benn, The Devouring (Billy Boyle mystery in WWII-era Switzerland)