A librarian of mystery: Emily Dunlay's The Library of Leaving - plus other historical fiction news

The most affecting espionage novels offer high stakes with political and emotional consequences, both, and Emily Dunlay’s second novel (after Teddy) belongs among them.

Pub. by Harper (Sept. 2026). The UK publisher is Fourth Estate/HarperCollins.

Helen Fox is a woman of secrets. In 1926, she works alone at the American Library of Geneva and lives a tranquil life in its attic apartment. The library receives shipments of books from American expats in Switzerland who died intestate, and she loves exploring the new arrivals.

Then she opens an airmail envelope containing the first chapter of an unpublished novel by a former lover, bestselling author August Hegland. Helen had met him in 1916, when she had served as a volunteer nurse at a hotel-turned-hospital for wounded POWs in the small Alpine town of Saint-Hubert-des-Arbres. Seeing herself in the manuscript’s pages, thinly disguised as “Nurse Pandora,” Helen fears exposure of her wartime activities.

After arranging for a new passport, Helen seeks distraction and accepts an invitation to the opera from her current and former protector, Austrian baron Leo von Lamberg. His past entanglements with Helen and August, and with the writer of a WWI-era diary of an arms manufacturer from Singapore, are among the mysteries this story of lost romance and betrayal carefully unfolds.

Appropriate to the milieu, the writing is sophisticated and full of Old-World elegance, augmented with literary references and the furtive atmosphere of wartime in a neutral country where agents on both sides are laying ground for their plans. Anyone dreading a stereotypical depiction about the wild past of a conservative librarian can breathe a sigh of relief; Helen is enigmatic and multifaceted throughout.

What choices did she make, and why? Is she the villain of August’s story, or of her own? Dunlay keeps these questions open up to the end of her scintillating novel.

I chose this book for the Historical Novels Review since it’s about libraries and literature, naturally, and because of the WWI setting, which is becoming a new favorite. Fortunately, this novel avoided the tired tropes about librarians I see all too often in the media.

The title of this book comes from a place nickname that’s discussed by the characters, one related to the novel’s Alpine setting, Saint-Hubert-des-Arbres (aka Saint Hubert of the Trees; he was the patron saint of forests).  Trees → Leaves → Leaving. Too much of a stretch? But it does make for an evocative title.

Other recommended works of historical fiction about libraries and librarians:

Addison Armstrong, The War Librarian, about the courageous American librarians who served in WWI.

Nancy Bilyeau, The Ghost of Madison Avenue, an atmospheric novella (and ghost story) set in NYC’s Morgan Library in late 1912.

Janie Chang, The Library of Legends, a literary novel and road adventure about people’s rescue of their priceless cultural heritage, set in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Madeline Martin, The Librarian Spy, with two women battling Nazi oppression in WWII-era Lisbon, Portugal and Lyon, France.

Jojo Moyes, The Giver of Stars, a novel of friendship and determination, following the resilient Kentucky women of the WPA’s Pack Horse Library during the Depression.

~

Also, I’ve been meaning to write about HF-related news that caught my attention in the last week. It’s literary award season, so there’s a fair bit to include.

Pub. by Oneworld (UK), 2025, in paperback.
Flatiron/Macmillan is the publisher in the US and Canada.

The 2026 winner of the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize was announced on Friday. Congratulations to Ruthvika Rao for The Fertile Earth, described as “a sweeping story of forbidden love, of friendship and betrayal, power and revenge, set against the tumultuous political landscape of post-Independence India.” The £10k prize celebrates “outstanding adventure fiction of today” and is open to novels written in English, by authors of any nationality, published in paperback in the UK.

The longlists are out for the 2026 ARA Historical Novel Prize from the Historical Novel Society Australasia, in partnership with the ARA Group. From the press release: “The chosen books span millennia, from Ancient Egypt through to the 1975 Dismissal, with captivating yarns of jewel heists, bushrangers and gold fever, powerful stories that shine a light on overlooked LGBTQI history, and bewitching tales of sea myths and folklore that centre strong female perspectives.” The longlists include two categories: adult and children/young adult. Shortlists will be announced on September 23.

The Historical Writers Association (HWA) also posted the longlists for the 2026 HWA Crown Awards, “celebrating the best in historical writing,” with 12 books in each category: fiction, debut fiction, and nonfiction. The HWA website has the full list of 36 books and short descriptions. Plenty of subgenre variety here.

The Christy Award finalists for 2026, for excellence in Christian fiction, are also out. They have categories for historical fiction and historical romance, and you’ll also find historical novels in the First Novel, Mystery, and Speculative categories.

At Jane Friedman’s blog, Ashli O’Connell has an essay about How a Debut Self-Published Novel Earned Five Figures in 10 Weeks Without Kindle Unlimited, focusing on her historical novel, Emmaline, about a young Englishwoman and her family’s pioneer journey to a Mormon settlement in Utah.

Kate Mosse has announced her next novel, Borderlands, out next August, a time-slip historical thriller inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry and the mysterious woman named in it: Aelfgiva. On this subject, this visually stunning New York Times article (gift link) by Jason Farago gets up close with the Bayeux Tapestry during its visit to the British Museum, which extends through July 2027. I was fortunate to have seen the tapestry in person during a high school trip to France in the ‘80s and would love to view it again.

From the “this is very cool” department, Dolly Parton wrote and recorded 15 original songs inspired by Kim Michele Richardson’s The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (which fits in with the main subject of this post, as it’s about the Kentucky Pack Horse librarians) and gifted them to the author as an amazing surprise. From the article at KFVS: “The songs have never been released publicly. Parton gave Richardson permission to use the music however she wanted, but she’s keep them preserved since she received the songs four years ago. However, even before Parton’s passing, Richardson said it was in the works for the public to hear those songs soon.”

Why historical fiction is a genre

Periodically I’ll come across a discussion on social media about whether historical fiction is a legitimate genre.

The argument against it goes as follows. The “historical fiction” label serves only to indicate a book’s setting. This is because novels in recognized genres incorporate plot patterns that let readers know what they’ll be getting. In romances, you have a central romantic relationship and an optimistic, “happily ever after” (or “happy for now”) ending. With mysteries, you get a crime, investigation, or other type of puzzle that’s resolved by the end, often by a detective figuring out where the clues lead. Psychological suspense novels offer creepy atmosphere, a heightened sense of disturbance, and complex plots with startling twists. With historical fiction, though, there are no story conventions to adhere to. Plus the plots and writing styles are too diverse to fit under a single category. Therefore, it’s not a genre at all, just a collective term to refer to novels set in the past.

I can understand the reasoning. But as a librarian who’s written two lengthy tomes whose titles make my opinion on the matter kind of obvious, I have some thoughts I wanted to put out there for consideration. 

 

Pub. by Bloomsbury/Libraries Unlimited (2005 and 2009)

This post is based on concepts mentioned in the books and expands upon subsequent comments I've made in Facebook discussions. The books are, admittedly, expensive at list price, but your library may have one or both, or can get you copies via interlibrary loan.

In short: it’s true that historical fiction isn’t a genre in the same way that romance, mystery, and psychological suspense novels are genres.

But it is still a genre, one with its own writing conventions and reader expectations, though these aren’t based around plot.

There’s an area within librarianship called readers’ advisory (RA for short), which concerns itself with connecting readers with books. The term is most often used with respect to leisure reading, which covers both fiction and nonfiction. Readers’ advisory librarians—I count myself among them—use our knowledge of books’ genres and subgenres, as well as other factors, to help readers find their perfect literary match.

Among writers, genres can have a negative connotation if they’re thought of as restrictive barriers. But within RA, the idea behind genres isn’t to pigeonhole books into rigid categories but to group them according to elements that appeal to readers and make it easier for them to find more books they enjoy. Novels can fit into multiple genres, too. “Genre-blends” are most definitely a thing, a very popular one. Ever heard of romantasy?

For anyone interested in this topic, I’d suggest checking out The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction by librarians Neal Wyatt and Joyce G. Saricks, now out in its 3rd edition (ALA Editions, 2019). It’s a classic text in the field, with chapters organized around the different fiction genres. Joyce was one of my editors when I wrote for NoveList (a RA database for libraries) years ago, and I’ve worked with Neal in the past in various capacities related to RA work; they know their stuff.

Within this book, fantasy, westerns, and historical fiction are termed “landscape genres.” Genres don’t have to be based around common plot patterns, although some of them are. The landscape genres are defined based on a different type of content: their settings, the type of worldbuilding and background detail the author uses, and the resulting experience for their readers (like, for historical fiction, immersion into an earlier time).

Intricately described settings, real or imaginary, create realms and set readers within them. This is the hallmark of the Landscape genres. Worldbuilding reigns here in novels rich with evocative landscapes, sumptuously realized settings, and fascinating framing detail … These novels turn readers into literary tourists, whisking them away to different locales and time periods, providing context and detail to new worlds and histories. (Wyatt and Saricks, p.121)

It’s interesting to note that I haven’t seen the same “not a genre!” arguments around fantasy and westerns that exist around historical fiction, even though these novels are similarly varied in terms of plot structure, writing styles, characters, and pacing. Science fiction is another; it has its tropes, as historical fiction does, but no single overarching story arc.

All genres have parameters, and those for historical fiction are often debated. For example, how far back should a novel be set for it to qualify? But historical novels— regardless of the subgenre they fall into—do share many commonalities, like their authors’ attempts to reimagine a past time and place, including the physical setting, character mindsets, customs, beliefs, and more, in a way that integrates these details smoothly into an engaging story.

Exceptions test the boundaries of the genre definition and prove that these boundaries exist. Romance readers will cry “not a romance” if a love story were to end tragically. Fans of horror fiction won’t be satisfied if a book labeled as such lacked a dark, dread-inducing atmosphere. And historical novels with insufficient historical ambience, too many anachronisms, or inconsistent worldbuilding, or those set too close to the present day, will elicit “this isn’t really historical fiction” type comments.

It’s within the subgenres that we can see marked diversity in terms of plot structures and writing styles. Historical mystery, historical romance, sagas, historical adventure, etc., all have loyal fans, some of whom prefer to remain within that smaller focus. Other readers are genre omnivores (like me) and prefer to branch out across most or all of them.

The subgenre (and setting and era) diversity of historical fiction on display!

The Historical Fiction Book Lovers Facebook group, which has over 700,000 members, has semi-regular posts debating the genre definition but seems, nonetheless, to understand the scope of its large umbrella. Recent posts have recommended Sena Jeter Naslund’s Ahab’s Wife (literary historical), Ilima Todd’s A Song for the Stars (inspirational/romance/biographical historical), Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January (historical fantasy), Irina Shapiro’s The Lovers (timeslip/historical romance), Rosamunde Pilcher’s September (saga), Tananarive Due’s The Reformatory (historical horror), Ken Follett’s Hornet Flight (historical thriller) and Sheila Williams’ No Better Time (a traditional historical novel).

One genre, many facets, and a large and wonderfully diverse assortment of stories. All with historical settings designed for readers to dive right into.

The extraordinary story of Edmonia Lewis

Mary Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907) was a neoclassical sculptor of Black-Indigenous parentage who gained international renown in the late 19th century yet fell into obscurity decades later. Alongside a recent artistic revival, her life and work should get a deserving boost through Baker’s eloquent biographical novel.

Pub. by Dafina/Kensington, April 2026 (288pp)

Her imagined first-person voice makes a statement. With cool, deliberate pacing and an exalted vocabulary, Edmonia reveals her extraordinary story, from her childhood in northern New York, where she wove baskets with her Ojibwe aunts for tourists, through the height of professional achievement in Rome, where she settled after tiring of racist treatment in her birth country.

Much about Lewis remains shadowy even today. And so, while anchored in the historical record, Baker’s tale includes fictional episodes for dramatic purposes and to fill in gaps.

The most unusual events in the narrative really did happen. After attending New York Central College through the financial support of anti-slavery Baptists, the teenager then known as Mary enrolls at Oberlin College in Ohio, where she endures sniffy racial attitudes and is brought to trial for poisoning two female students. Baker’s explanations for this shocking accusation make logical sense, as does Mary’s decision to use the middle name she was given in baptism, Edmonia, after moving to Boston to start afresh.

Edmonia Lewis, ca. 1870. By Henry Rocher
Adam Cuerden - National Portrait Gallery (United States)

A detailed author’s note would have been beneficial, but one could hazard a guess that some secondary characters and unlikely coincidences involving them were invented. What feels entirely real, though, is Edmonia’s strength of will. She is bold, uncompromising, occasionally prickly (even with her benefactors), confident in her abilities, and determined to elevate and showcase the humanity of her people by sculpting them in marble. What a force she must have been. Edmonia brings to life a woman who refused to be defined by anyone but herself.

This review, cross-posted to the Historical Novel Society website, was based on my reading of a NetGalley copy. I had included Edmonia in my preview of spring/summer 2026 novels, and it didn’t disappoint in the least. The novel has only a few dozen Amazon reviews, so it seems to be flying under the radar (I would contribute one myself, but Amazon doesn’t seem to like me posting reviews there).

Edmonia Lewis was the focus of an exhibition at the Peabody-Essex Museum that ran from Feb-June 2026, and an interview with the curator (on YouTube) is still posted at the PEM website. The exhibition has since traveled to the Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia, so if you’re in the vicinity of Athens (Georgia, that is) between now and next January, it looks very much worth checking out. Many photos of Lewis’s sculptures are posted at the museum website.