Dreamland by Nancy Bilyeau, an opulent and dangerous trip to 1911 Coney Island

Peggy Batternberg is an American heiress, the granddaughter of a Jewish immigrant who made his fortune in mining. Tall, dark-haired, and elegant, she knows how to dress for the occasion and move in upper-crust Manhattan society in 1911. All her life, she’s been sheltered within her overprotective family, and her lack of experience with day-to-day practicalities (drawing her own bath, handling money) will make you shake your head. But she has gumption and a desire for self-improvement, which count for a lot.

Sadly for Peggy – but fortunately for readers of her entertaining narrative – she gets dragged away, reluctantly and literally, from her job as shopgirl at the Moonrise Bookstore and installed in Brooklyn’s posh Oriental Hotel on the Atlantic shoreline. Her family will be spending the summer there at the request of her younger sister Lydia’s rich fiancé, Henry Taul, whose mother supposedly wants to get to know them. Since Peggy and Lydia’s late father was a black sheep who died in debt, they need to do their utmost to ensure that Lydia’s marriage happens. Peggy’s past entanglement with Henry is conveniently never mentioned by her relatives.

The Oriental Hotel is close by Coney Island, called America’s Playground, which promises grand amusements and amazing sights, all new experiences for Peggy – one of which involves Stefan Chalakoski, a Serbian immigrant and artist with old world manners that surprise and delight her. He’s a dream of a character, his feelings and experienced worldview subtly expressed through his dialogue and actions. Midway through, Peggy even finds herself drinking Coca-Cola and enjoying it, to her family’s embarrassment. The plot delves into much more than her coming-of-age summer, though.

The prologue, the only part of the novel not in Peggy’s lively voice, depicts a chilling scene – a woman’s beachfront murder – and gets readers noticing the dark undercurrents threaded through her story. Other bodies turn up later, too. Peggy’s cousins Ben and Paul exhibit shifty behavior, and Henry’s preoccupation with Lydia’s youthful purity is worrisome. Themes of class prejudice and police misconduct make themselves known, along with the unbreakable bond of sisterhood. Although unspoken, there’s also some mystery about Peggy’s past romantic history that I couldn’t help wondering about.

The impressive world-building begins on page one, easily conveying the world of Coney Island’s Dreamland park, with its hubbub of activity, brilliantly lit attractions, and popcorn-scented air. This is no sepia-tinted distant past but a sensation-filled present I felt I could step right into. Peggy is a sassy delight who grows in knowledge and confidence, and her transformation from sheltered socialite to take-charge amateur detective is smoothly done. I’d love to meet Peggy again, later on in life, to see the changes she wrought in the world.

Dreamland was published by Endeavour Quill on January 16th in paperback and ebook. Thanks to the publisher for approving my NetGalley access for the tour with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.

Giveaway!

During the Blog Tour, we are giving away a paperback copy of Dreamland! To enter, please use the Gleam form below.

Giveaway Rules

– Giveaway ends at 11:59 pm EST on February 16th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
– Paperback giveaway is open to US only.
– Only one entry per household.
– All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspicion of fraud will be decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion.
– The winner has 48 hours to claim prize or a new winner is chosen.

Dreamland

A Long Petal of the Sea, Isabel Allende's epic of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath

Allende’s fluidly written saga conveys her deep familiarity with the events she depicts, and her intent to illustrate their human impact in a moving way. The scope spans most of the lives of Victor Dalmau, a Republican army medic in 1936 Spain, and Roser Bruguera, a music student taken in by Victor’s family and, later, his brother Guillem’s lover and the mother of Guillem’s child.

The story follows them over nearly sixty years, beginning with the tumult of the Spanish Civil War. Guillem is killed fighting against the Fascists, news that Victor can’t bear to tell Roser initially. After surviving separate and terrible circumstances that leave them refugees in France, where authorities treat them with contempt and worse, the two marry for practical reasons in order to join Pablo Neruda’s mission transporting over 2000 Spanish exiles to Chile aboard the S.S. Winnipeg. In Santiago, the Dalmaus find many Chileans sympathetic to the Spaniards, while others make them unwelcome.

With a poetic title coming from a poem of Neruda’s referring to Chile as “a long petal of sea and wine and snow,” the novel prompts readers to reflect on the timely themes of cultural adaptation and political refugees’ shared experiences across eras and continents. It also illustrates Victor and Roser’s unusual marriage, which begins out of duty, ripens into affection and mutual admiration, and transforms into something more.

Allende frequently steps away from her characters to relay the larger historical picture, as in this memorable passage: “The exodus from Barcelona was a Dantesque spectacle of thousands of people shivering with cold in a stampede that soon slowed to a straggling procession traveling at the speed of the amputees, the wounded, the old folks and the children.” Incidents from the Dalmaus’ lives are sometimes recited rather than shown, which can be distancing, but Allende’s storytelling abilities are undeniable.

A Long Petal of the Sea was published last week by Ballantine (this review first appeared in February's Historical Novels Review). It was translated from Spanish by Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson.

For two other takes, contrasting ones, on Allende's novel (her 17th), see the reviews in the New York Times, by Paula McLain, and in the Washington Post, by Kristen Millares Young.

Historical fiction award winners from ALA Midwinter 2020

The American Library Association Midwinter conference took place last weekend in Philly. I'm a bit late in reporting on the book awards there, so without further ado: here are the historical novels that garnered honors at the conference.

On the Reading List for 2020, which selects the best in genre fiction for adult readers:

In the Historical Fiction category, the winner was Lara Prescott's The Secrets We Kept (Knopf), focusing on two women on a secret mission to smuggle Pasternak's manuscript of Dr. Zhivago out of the USSR so it can be published and finally reach readers worldwide.

On the shortlist for Historical Fiction are: City of Flickering Light by Juliette Fay (1920s Hollywood), The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins (Georgian London), The Song of the Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning (WWII-era Shanghai), and Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati (late 19th-century NYC).

Also for the Reading List awards, the winner in Fantasy was Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, set in Mexico during the Jazz Age.  The Mystery winner was Alison Sinclair's The Right Sort of Man (see my review), taking place in post-WWII London.

On to the ALA Notable Books for 2020, which (in the Fiction category) are principally novels of a literary bent. Those receiving accolades include:

Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer (slavery in 19th-c America)
Michael Crummey, The Innocents (19th-century Newfoundland)
Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys (Jim Crow-era Florida)

Among the winners of the Alex Awards, adult books suitable for young adults, was Dominicana by Angie Cruz, an immigrant story set in 1960s New York.  The Nickel Boys appears on the winners' list here, too.

Review of Cesare: A Novel of War-Torn Berlin by Jerome Charyn

The 1920 German silent horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari featured a mad scientist and a somnambulist named Cesare who did his bidding. Adding to his repertoire of unique historical interpretations, Charyn transplants this scenario into Nazi Germany, a setting with nightmarish qualities made real.

His “Cesare” is Erik Holdermann, who survives childhood trauma to become the henchman of Wilhelm Canaris, head of Germany’s military spy network, after saving the older man’s life. Acting against the Nazi regime from within, they quietly try to help individual Jews escape, but in a place rife with revenge murders and double and triple agents, discovery is inevitable; the only question is when.

The taut story line is full of surreal visuals and elaborate illusions, from Berlin’s Weisse Maus cabaret, reborn as a Gestapo club, to the purported Jewish cultural center at Theresienstadt. The toxic atmosphere distorts everyone’s nature, and if that’s not disturbing enough, there are too many superficially depicted, sex-obsessed female characters who enjoy physical abuse. Inventive, intense, and repellent in equal measure.

Cesare was published this month by Bellevue Literary Press, and I wrote this review for Booklist's Nov 15th issue.

Charyn writes in many styles and has specialized in creative mixtures of fact and fiction focusing on historical characters, such as Teddy Roosevelt (The Perilous Adventures of the Cowboy King) and writers Jerzy Kosinski (Jerzy) and Emily Dickinson (The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson). This was one of those novels I admired more than I enjoyed. It received starred reviews in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, and is getting raves elsewhere, but I haven't seen other reviews that mention its depiction of women. I appreciated the creative thought behind the presentation of the setting, and the blurb described it as a love story, in part, but I can't say I read it that way.

Remembrance by Rita Woods, a unique debut saga of American history

In Rita Woods’ imaginative debut novel, the title refers to an important state of being and a special place.

Remembrance is historical fiction more in the vein of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad than a traditional narrative, although little from the blurb gives this away. It has a firm thread of fantasy within, or what you might call magical realism. Several of its central female characters – there are four – have abilities, perhaps related to the ancestral practice of Haitian vodun, they can use to protect themselves and others from harm, if they’re able to control them (not always possible). The secret haven called Remembrance, created by one strong-willed woman for this purpose, sits within the borders of antebellum Ohio and shelters a group of the formerly enslaved; white people aren’t permitted to enter.

These four women, past and present, all face varying degrees of racism and its devastating effects and must rely on themselves and one another. Gaelle, an aide in a modern-day Cleveland nursing home, still deals with the tragic aftermath of the Haitian earthquake while devotedly caring for an elderly resident who has the odd ability of dispersing heat, which she also shares. In 1857, in defiance of the freedom she was promised on her 18th birthday, a house slave named Margot and her younger sister are sold away from the Hannigans’ Louisiana plantation after the family’s fortunes fall into ruin. And back in 1791, an African-born enslaved woman called Abigail – not her birth name – is forced to leave Saint Domingue with her mistress, leaving her sons behind, as maroons (escaped slaves) on the island join forces in violent rebellion.

The themes of unpredictable futures, empty promises, and family separations emerge in all three eras. Most beguiling here are the elements of Creole culture woven into the women’s experiences, the original mélange of time periods, and Woods’ ability to describe sights, sounds, and feelings so evocatively. For example, a scene with Abigail encountering brutal cold for the first time in ice-encrusted New Orleans: She blew out a breath and watched it fog in the frigid air, both intrigued and horrified, as it hovered a moment in front of her lips, like some restless winter spirit.

As if often the case in multi-period fiction, the historical settings and personages hold the greatest interest. Gaelle’s story, set so much later than the other two, is less fully developed and seems tangential to the plot at times, while Abigail’s account, which sees her from young womanhood through old age, is an affecting tale that also presents the mysterious legacy she leaves behind. There are also some subtle mistakes in French usage.

Don’t expect to have all your questions answered about how the supernatural world-building works, but for anyone interested in a unique presentation of American history and heritage, the novel is impressively detailed and worthy of note.

Remembrance is published today by Forge; thanks to the publisher for sending me an ARC.

Orphans are everywhere in today's historical fiction

From Oliver Twist to Anne Shirley, and from Jane Eyre to Cosette from Les Misérables, orphans play starring roles in many classic works of literature. The hooks for these stories practically write themselves: what circumstances left these young people alone in the world, and how do they learn to survive? Their coming-of-age and ongoing character growth can result in gripping fiction.

And so it may not be surprising to see orphans trending in historical novels. Helping to spur this focus is the huge success of Christina Baker Kline's Orphan Train (2013), a multi-period novel about the homeless and abandoned children from America's eastern cities who were sent out West on trains, in hopes they'd find a better life with foster parents there (the reality, though, was sometimes grim).

Here are a dozen recent historical novels with a distinctive title commonality. Many, though not all, take place during the early decades of the 20th century.  How many have you read?

Here are a few more — all very popular with historical fiction readers and book clubs — that incorporate similar themes: children who endure traumatic circumstances during historical times.

For a full list of authors, titles, and settings in the collages above, here's a historical orphan reading list.  Please add additional suggestions in the comments.

Elizabeth Brooks, The Orphan of Salt Winds (Tin House, 2019). 1939 England.

Shirley Dickson, The Orphan Sisters (Bookouture, 2019). WWII-era England.

Joanna Goodman, The Home for Unwanted Girls (Harper, 2019).  1950s Quebec.

Stacey Halls, The Lost Orphan (MIRA, April 2020).  1750s London.

Pam Jenoff, The Orphan's Tale (MIRA, 2017). WWII-era Europe.

Jeanne Kalogridis, The Orphan of Florence (St. Martin's Griffin, 2017). 15th-century Florence, Italy.

Lauren Kate, The Orphan's Song (Putnam, 2019).  18th-century Venice.

Natasha Lester, The Paris Orphan (Forever, 2019).  WWII-era Paris.

Gemma Liviero, Pastel Orphans (Lake Union, 2015).  1930s Berlin.

Kristina McMorris, Sold on a Monday (Sourcebooks, 2018).  Depression-era Pennsylvania.

Glynis Peters, The Secret Orphan (One More Chapter, 2019). WWII-era England.

Sandy Taylor, The Little Orphan Girl (Bookouture, 2018). 1901 Ireland.

Kim van Alkemade, Orphan #8 (William Morrow, 2015). 1920s Manhattan; multi-period.

Ellen Marie Wiseman, The Orphan Collector (Kensington, July 2020). WWI-era Philadelphia.

Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours (Ballantine, 2019). 1930s-40s Tennessee; multi-period.

The Daughters of Ironbridge by Mollie Walton, a saga of friendship and class differences in 1830s Shropshire

This is the debut saga from Walton, a successful transition for the author, who also pens historical fiction under her real name, Rebecca Mascull. She writes with admiration for the ordinary people whose toil fueled industrial growth in mid-19th-century England.

The setting is Shropshire in the 1830s, over 50 years since the world’s first iron bridge—which gave the nearby town its name—was constructed over the River Severn. The two protagonists, Anny Woodvine and Margaret King, are unlikely friends. Anny is the amiable, well-loved daughter of a furnace filler at the ironworks, while Margaret, whose ironmaster father despairs of her shyness, lives in privilege at Southover, the wealthy estate overlooking the town.

When the girls first meet by accident in the woodland, Anny, whose mother taught her to read and write, has just taken a job running errands for Mr. King’s estate manager. She is nervous about speaking with the daughter of the house, but Margaret, a lonely girl abused by her older brother, Cyril, tries to put her at ease. They get to know one another through meetings and secret letters, but problems arise years later due to Cyril’s actions, and when a handsome artist comes to town.

Their story is rooted in the history of Ironbridge and the local region, with many examples of the class divide. Anny’s parents take pride in a good day’s work, while Mr. King (somewhat stereotypically) is cold and stern, aiming for profit above all. There’s also some mystery about a baby whose young mother died while carrying her across the iron bridge late one evening, but the plot doesn’t take the obvious route here. Despite some head-hopping which gives away people’s motives too early, The Daughters of Ironbridge is an engaging read with surprising twists, and the ending sets events up nicely for the next in the series.

The novel was published by Zaffre in 2019; this was a personal purchase I'd reviewed for the Historical Novels Review. The next book, The Secrets of Ironbridge, will be published in April 2020. Some history: the town of Ironbridge is described and promoted as the "birthplace of the Industrial Revolution."

View of the Iron Bridge, 2015, with its previous grey color.
Photo by Simon Hark, via Wikimedia Commons - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Written in Their Stars by Elizabeth St. John, her newest English Civil War family saga

Spanning fifteen years, from the height of the English Civil War to after the Restoration, Elizabeth St. John’s third volume of her Lydiard Chronicles is the most complex yet. It continues to add new shadings of personality to her ongoing cast of characters while homing in on three women from her family tree whose actions strongly influenced their times, and vice versa.

Luce Hutchinson, daughter of Lucy (St. John) Apsley, heroine of the first book, The Lady of the Tower, sits firmly on the side of Parliament and yearns for a world without oppressive monarchical rule. As one of the signers of the warrant for Charles I’s execution, Luce's husband Colonel John Hutchinson, a well-known Puritan leader, makes a mark on history that can’t be undone.

With that action, John further alienates Luce’s brother, Allen, a fervent Cavalier who chooses to go into exile in France rather than remain in Cromwell’s England. With him goes his wife, Frances, and young daughter, Isabella; they risk being called traitors for joining the court of Charles I’s queen in Paris, but Allen has his eye on the long game, planning to bide his time and working toward the restoration of Prince Charles. Their cousin Nan Wilmot, the intelligent and crafty Countess of Rochester, does what she must to survive the tumultuous era, playing both sides to ensure her sons’ inheritance is kept intact. Nan sits at the heart of a spy network and enlists Frances in her secret mission to re-establish the monarchy.

For readers most familiar with the English Civil War though its accounts of battles and prominent men, this evocative saga will shift your impressions. St. John has based her novel on family memoirs, and their stories are worth knowing. She also weaves in other little-known facets of history, such as the unsung role of Susan Hyde (sister of the Earl of Clarendon, the future James II’s father-in-law). Barbara Villiers looms large in history as Charles II’s favorite mistress, but in Written in Their Stars, readers also see her as the lissome St. John cousin who comes to play a surprising part not just in the royal court but in her family’s future.

Despite the political leanings that divide them, the characters remain emotionally close to each other as family—a delicate balance evoked well in the writing. The relationships between three sets of spouses are also a highlight. While this novel can stand alone, I recommend reading the previous two books first to fill in all of the background to the characters, and what led them to the paths they chose.

Written in Their Stars was published by Falcon Historical in November (ebook and paperback, 384pp).

Giveaway

During the Blog Tour, we are giving away two signed copies of Written in their Stars! To enter, please use the Gleam form below.

Giveaway Rules

– Giveaway ends at 11:59 pm EST on January 10th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
– Paperback giveaway is open to US residents only.
– Only one entry per household.
– All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspicion of fraud will be decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion.
– The winner has 48 hours to claim prize or a new winner is chosen.

Written in Their Stars

Emuna Elon's House on Endless Waters, a unique and ruminative WWII novel

Yoel Blum, a prominent Israeli writer, had promised his mother that he’d never visit Amsterdam, the city where he was born. But she has passed on, and when his agent persuades him to attend a literary event there at his Dutch publisher’s invitation, he feels obliged to accept. Yoel knows little about the circumstances of his birth, other than that his mother left the Netherlands with him and his older sister, Nettie, during WWII, never speaking of the place where she lost her husband and other relatives.

While there, Yoel and his wife, Bat-Ami, pay a visit to the Jewish Historical Museum and, in a film clip from a long-ago wedding, catch a glimpse of his mother as a young woman with her husband and daughter, and holding an unfamiliar male infant. This spurs Yoel to visit Nettie back in Israel to find out who the baby was. The startling story Nettie tells him inspires him to return to Amsterdam alone, several days later, on a journey to research and craft a very personal novel he feels will be his most significant work.

Elon chooses to withhold the full details of Nettie’s revelations, a decision that feels frustrating initially for a character-centered literary novel, since it creates even more distance between readers and the protagonist. Yoel, we learn, has closed himself off emotionally throughout his life, even from his wife, children, and grandchildren. But what the author does instead is use a technique, I decided later, that proves to be much more original.

While perambulating around Amsterdam and observing venues central to his family story, Yoel hand-writes scenes for his novel in a series of notebooks. These imagined scenes follow his young mother, Sonia, who he now feels he never really knew; her physician husband, Eddy; and their two young children, who live in a basement apartment owned by a wealthy couple, the de Langes, as increasing restrictions are imposed upon Amsterdam’s Jewish residents. Both families believe they’ll be immune from the dreadful events happening to Jews elsewhere.

Yoel’s thoughts and experiences are closely intercut with episodes from his manuscript, which increases the pacing of this ruminative work and creates continual interactions between today and the past, often multiple times in the same chapter. This enhances Elon’s themes about the long-term effects of trauma, the suffering and persecution carved into Jewish collective memory, and mothers’ desperate instincts to protect their children. For me, one aspect of the mystery in Yoel’s past was never in doubt from one point forward, but the images of wartime Amsterdam are beautifully evoked and heart-rending.

House on Endless Waters, translated from Hebrew by Anthony Berris and Linda Yichiel, will be published by Atria/S&S on January 7th; thanks to the publisher for sending the review copy.

Libraries and librarians take center stage in these works of historical fiction

Fellow librarians: the time for seeing our professional roles and collections depicted in historical fiction has arrived.  We've emerged from beyond the mousy stereotype and have even become trendy.  The titles in the following collage have clear appeal for all bibliophiles, not just those who work with books for a living.  Some were recently published, while you'll find the others appearing next year. Links go to their Goodreads pages.

Nancy Bilyeau's Christmas ghost story The Ghost of Madison Avenue (Amazon, 2019), a novella taking place in 1912 Manhattan, has the memorable setting of financier J. P. Morgan's opulent private library. The title of Janie Chang's The Library of Legends (William Morrow, May 2020) refers to a precious and rare centuries-old collection of myths and legends being transported across China by a group of brave university students as they flee Nanking during their country's war with Japan.  Marble lions flank the entrance of the New York Public Library, the setting for Fiona Davis's The Lions of Fifth Avenue (Dutton, July 2020), a dual-period novel of two women, eighty years apart, whose lives center around the landmark building, and who are both puzzled by mysterious book thefts.

In her multi-period novel Home for Erring and Outcast Girls (Crown, 2019), Julie Kibler, a librarian herself, focuses on a contemporary university librarian investigating the histories of two residents of a progressive home for fallen women in Texas a century earlier. Moyes' The Giver of Stars (Viking, 2019), set in a rural Kentucky mountain town, emphasizes female friendship in its depiction of the region's Depression-era Pack Horse Librarians. The importance of literature and literacy also emerges in The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles (Atria, June 2020), which heads to WWII-era Paris to acknowledge the valiant workers at the American Library of Paris, which remained open and supplying books during the Nazi occupation.

Richardson's The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek (Sourcebooks, 2019) centers themes of literacy and prejudice in the story of a young Appalachian woman, one of Kentucky's "blue people," who delivers books to mountain residents in the Depression years. Sarah Sundin, a prolific chronicler of WWII-era settings in her inspirational romances, has a librarian heroine for her moving, hopeful The Land Beneath Us (Revell, Feb. 2020), set at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, and overseas. Salley Vickers' The Librarian (Viking UK, 2018), described as "charmingly subversive" by the publisher, follows a young children's librarian in a small town in 1950s England which has its fill of gossip and secrets.

In addition, Publishers Marketplace includes a recent deal for Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray's The Personal Librarian, about Belle da Costa Greene, a woman of color who became J. P. Morgan's librarian in 1905; the novel will appear from Berkley in 2021. Greene also plays a prominent role in Nancy Bilyeau's novella, above.

The Oracle of Cumae by Melissa Hardy, a humorous romp through Italian history and folklore

In the central Italian city of Casteldurante in the late 19th century, a 99-year-old woman, Mariuccia Umbellino, summons a priest so she can unburden herself of a long-held secret. What she reveals isn’t your standard multi-generational saga fare; instead, Hardy’s short novel is a tongue-in-cheek romp through Italian folklore, mythology, and religious tradition.

The tale Mariuccia unfolds takes her back to her youth in the tiny village of Montemonaco, where her family tended olive groves and goats and guarded the shrine of the Lady Sibylla, the Oracle of Cumae.

Sibylla is the self-same prophetess from Virgil and Ovid. As Mariuccia and her mother discover, when they arrive to rescue her before a traveling priest and stuffy prior destroy the pagan cave where she lives, there’s nothing left of Sibylla but her voice – and she’s quite the talker. As if her presence doesn’t cause enough trouble – she gets to move around while tucked away in a jug – she stirs up plenty on her own. What happens next involves love spells (both failed and successful), ghosts, a marriage or two, and a tinker with the evil eye.

If the plot feels a little thin in places, Sibylla has some terrific wisecracking lines (she hates to be left out of the action). The novel’s a fun diversion on historical fiction’s lighter side, featuring two smart heroines who won’t be silenced.

Melissa Hardy's The Oracle of Cumae was published by Canada's Second Story Press in 2019, and I reviewed it from NetGalley for the Historical Novels Review.

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes, a novel about books, dedication, and female friendship during the Depression years

Books provide people with education and entertainment; they change lives as they introduce different worlds and unfamiliar experiences. During the Depression, the women who transported books in their horses’ saddlebags to isolated Kentucky mountain residents, in all seasons, as part of the WPA’s Pack Horse Library Initiative provided a lifeline of literacy to their audiences.

Hearing about this unique job after a dull church service, Alice Van Cleve grows intrigued and immediately volunteers to join. After getting swept off her feet by Bennett Van Cleve, a burly, handsome Kentuckian visiting her native England, Alice feels stifled by the insularity in her new home of Baileyville, a small Appalachian town, and surprised by her new husband’s unexpected aloofness. Alice had never fit in at home, and with her clipped British accent and dislike for frivolous social pursuits, she’s an outsider in Kentucky, too.

She finds an unofficial new family with the four other pack-horse librarians, including fiery Margery O’Hare, who lives life as she pleases, and Izzy Bailey, a polio survivor with an overprotective mother. All the women face obstacles, not just the harsh elements on the trail, but also Alice’s controlling father-in-law, and townspeople threatened by the ideas the books contain.

Moyes strikes the right balance between the heartwarming details of the women’s friendship and the realistic threats they face. The mountainous landscape comes through beautifully as the women traverse rivers, ride their horses up through rocky forests and down into the hollers, and gaze up at the crystalline night sky. They have distinctive personalities, yet it’s easy to identify with all of them.

Anyone who has read Moyes knows her skill at writing moving, complex love stories, too. While one character is stereotypically evil, the novel is a fine tribute to the devoted, hardy librarians who served as knowledge ambassadors for their region.

The Giver of Stars was published by Pamela Dorman Books in the US and Canada, and Michael Joseph in the UK.  I reviewed it initially for November's Historical Novels Review.

Looking for a historical novel set in Paris around the WWII years?

If so, you have plenty to choose from. Most are set during the war, with some extending to just before or after.  These covers have a noticeable element in common, too.

The Land Beyond the Sea, Sharon Kay Penman's forthcoming epic of 12th-century Jerusalem and the Crusader states

Penman is justifiably renowned for her medieval epics. Working on a large canvas, she illustrates the era’s political movements and the personalities of its movers and shakers with equal dexterity. In this standalone work, she focuses on the twelfth-century Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, ruled by relatives of England’s Plantagenets (her previous subjects).

Among many well-crafted characters, several quickly stand out, including Baldwin IV, the gifted boy monarch tragically stricken by leprosy; his stepmother, Maria Comnena, a courageous Greek princess scorned by her late husband’s first, discarded wife; and honorable nobleman Balian d’Ibelin.

As the Crusader states of Outremer (“the land beyond the sea”) defend their lands against Muslim military forces, which are led by the charismatic sultan Saladin, they struggle with internal strife. The royal succession is of pressing concern, since Baldwin can’t marry and expects to die young. The Muslims’ viewpoints are also relayed firsthand.

From fierce battle maneuvers to the emotional corridors of an unexpected love story, readers will feel intimately drawn into the characters’ dramatic lives in Penman’s splendid historical novel.

The Land Beyond the Sea will be published by Putnam in March 2020; I wrote this early review for Booklist's 12/1 issue. Reviewing this 688-page novel in 175 words or fewer was a particular challenge...

Penman's previous two historical novels, Lionheart (2011) and A King's Ransom (2014), which focused on Richard I of England, take place after The Land Beyond the Sea and feature some of the same characters once Richard heads to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade.  The cast of this latest book, and the historical events depicted within, will be less familiar to most readers.

Regarding the relationship of Baldwin IV to the Plantagenet kings of England, he was the cousin of Henry II, who ruled England at the time (and whose consort was Eleanor of Aquitaine). Baldwin's father, King Amalric of Jerusalem, and Henry's father, Geoffrey of Anjou, were half-brothers. Amalric appears in a few early scenes in this book. Going back even further in Jerusalem's medieval history, Amalric's mother, Melisende, was a reigning queen of Jerusalem and a fascinating historical figure. Her story was retold in fiction by Judith Tarr in Queen of Swords (2000). I'd first encountered Baldwin IV in fiction in two of Tarr's historical fantasy novels, Alamut and The Dagger and the Cross and later in Cecelia Holland's Jerusalem.  You may also remember Balian of Ibelin from the film Kingdom of Heaven. In all, for historical fiction readers in search of novels on the subject to whet your appetite for the period before Penman's novel makes its appearance, there are these to choose from, among others.

Nina MacLaughlin's Wake, Siren: Ovid's Metamorphoses for the #MeToo era

“The act of art is metamorphosis,” pronounces one woman in this eclectic collection, in which MacLaughlin daringly fashions a new artistic work that transforms female characters from Ovid’s Metamorphoses into the heroes (or anti-heroes) of their own stories.

While they take a feminist slant, similar to that in Madeline Miller’s Circe (2018), the 34 accounts in this multi-voiced mosaic, which range from a couple of pages to much longer, creatively diverge in approach and style. Some stories dazzle with their poetic eloquence, while others, written in slangy contemporary English, offer short, punchy lines and timeless themes.

Baucis, an elderly woman, tells a moving tale of enduring love and the gods’ power and gratitude, while a therapy-session dialogue ideally suits Myrrha’s disturbing story of her son’s conception. Medusa reveals the true tragedy of her plight, and in “Sibyl,” MacLaughlin converts the traditional tale into a paean to older women’s wisdom.

Many women in Ovid’s poems suffer unwanted male attention or sexual violence and find themselves silenced after being changed into animals, trees, or something else, but here they express their sorrow, fear, and rage. The free mingling of ancient characters with elements of workaday modern life won’t please everyone, but open-minded readers should applaud the virtuosity and find much worth discovering in these memorable reinterpretations.

Nina MacLaughlin's Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung was published by FSG on November 19th. I wrote this review for Booklist's October 1st issue, and it's the latest in a growing string of re-interpreted myths that I've been assigned to cover for that publication, including Miller's Circe as mentioned above, Maria Dahvana Headley's The Mere Wife (which re-imagines Beowulf in the suburbs; stunningly good, but not historical fiction), Kamila Shamsie's award-winning Home Fire (also excellent, but not HF).  With its mix of mythical and modern settings, whether you'd call Wake, Siren historical fiction is also up for debate as well, but it's worth reading, even if you don't think you're interested in shorter pieces.

Fortune's Child by James Conroyd Martin, entertaining fiction about Empress Theodora

In his solidly entertaining sixth novel, the lives of Martin’s two intelligent, resilient protagonists are marked by dramatic shifts in circumstance.

The tale of Theodora, the beautiful dark-haired middle daughter of a bearkeeper, begins in the shadow of Constantinople’s Hippodrome arena, plays out on various stages as an actress, and concludes atop a throne, following her improbable rise to become empress of the eastern Roman Empire as consort to Justinian I. Dying of cancer at 47, she liberates her old friend, a eunuch and former royal scribe named Stephen, from his grisly dungeon prison – where he’s languished for five years for reasons he doesn’t know – and asks him to write her biography.

Unlike Theodora, Stephen has had few opportunities for agency, but as his tale unfolds in parallel to hers, it wields a similar pull. A Syrian boy sold to a Persian magus and trained in multiple languages, he finds his life violently altered as a teenager. Aboard a ship leaving Antioch, he meets Theodora, who becomes his unattainable Circe.

The raw material fueling this novel is consistently fascinating. It offers a mixture of familiar human traits and exotic customs, with mythological “living pictures” all the rage in theatres and holy men, called stylites, living atop marble pillars. Likewise, the settings are vibrantly evoked as Theodora journeys through the vast, diverse lands of what we now call the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century, from the fertile landscapes of the Libyan Pentapolis to the pleasure-seeking venues of Antioch and a dark cell in Alexandria, where she encounters the Monophysite heresy for the first time. The theological details are cogently explained.

The energetically paced plot has prevalent themes of ambition and friendship. Unlike many strong-minded historical fiction heroines, Theodora forms bonds of sisterhood with other women, and they help each other navigate a world that doesn’t favor them. Along the way she makes some major mistakes and learns from them. Justinian, her future husband, shows up fairly late on the scene, and his personality remains somewhat enigmatic. This is just the first half of Theodora’s story, however, and history tells us that there’s plenty more to look forward to in book two.

Fortune's Child was published in October by Hussar Quill Press.

Review of Entertaining Mr. Pepys by Deborah Swift, set in 17th-century London

Deborah Swift has established a literary home in the 17th century, and her expertise shows in her work; she has a gift for illuminating the characters, customs, politics, and religion of the time. Her newest trilogy looks at the real-life women who figured in Samuel Pepys’ famous diary. Entertaining Mr. Pepys, the third volume, can also stand alone (I haven’t read the others yet and have some catching up to do). With such a title, and with a professional actress as its heroine, you’d expect it to be lively and entertaining, and it is.

Mary Elizabeth “Bird” Carpenter comes from a well-to-do London household. Her troubles begin after her widowed father grows besotted with and marries a younger woman who wants Bird out of her home. Bird is hardly thrilled to marry horse-dealer Christopher Knepp, who she barely knows, and even less so when she arrives at Knepp’s home as a bride and discovers she was essentially purchased to be his servant and brood-mare. Knepp, driven by his jealousy of a neighbor and business rival, is a skinflint who spends nearly all his meager income on horses, and Bird spends many exhausting days—and then years—washing saddles, preparing meals for Knepp’s workers, and fighting to create a well-furnished household amid the grime and neglect.

Bird has always had a beautiful singing voice, and through her friendship with Livvy, Knepp’s black serving-maid, she gets introduced to the London stage: first as an observer, then as a performer. When she sees a possible way out of her life of drudgery, she grabs it with both hands. Knepp is reluctant to let his wife tread the boards, but the enterprising Bird sees a way to present it to him as a business opportunity. Through the stage, Bird finds a new admirer in avid theatre-goer Samuel Pepys.

I especially enjoyed Swift’s depiction of working-class life and people in 1660s London. Her diverse cast of characters includes Bird’s needy, frail mother-in-law; several Catholics forced to hide their beliefs; Livvy and her family, forced to live apart; and Stefan, a young actor who adored playing female roles and is devastated by the new trend to hire actresses, rather than men, to play women on stage. Neither he nor Knepp is kind to Bird, but Swift also gives us enough glimpses of their struggles so that their attitudes are understandable, even if it’s difficult to like them. Swift also presents a convincing, panoramic view of the chaos and devastation wrought by the Great Fire of 1666:

Further up, shouts, as families flung their goods into the river. From this distance, the wharf teemed with running silhouettes against the brilliant light of the flames… the landscape of London was like a mouth with missing teeth, full of blackened stumps and gaps. The view was alien, unrecognizable. Half-burned joists and rafters stuck out from church steeples; in the distance something exploded.

Though the plot dips into others’ viewpoints now and again, it’s anchored by the delightful and determined Bird, and it’s a pleasure to follow along with her unexpectedly successful career path in 17th-century London.

Entertaining Mr. Pepys is published by Accent Press this week, and this is day 1 of the author's blog tour with Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours. There's a tour-wide giveaway, too:

During the Blog Tour, we are giving away a signed copy of Entertaining Mr. Pepys! To enter, please use the Gleam form below.

Giveaway Rules

– Giveaway ends at 11:59 pm EST on December 12th. You must be 18 or older to enter.
– Paperback giveaway is open internationally.
– Only one entry per household.
– All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspicion of fraud will be decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion.
– The winner has 48 hours to claim prize or a new winner is chosen.

Entertaining Mr. Pepys

Love Without End by Melvyn Bragg, a multi-period novel exploring Heloise and Abelard's 12th-century love story - plus giveaway

The love story of the brilliant scholar Heloise and her tutor, the celebrity philosopher Peter Abelard, is remembered for its passion, tragedy, and sacrifice. Today, though, some aspects of their relationship can seem inexplicable. Why, for example, did their marriage have to be secret, and why did both feel obliged to take religious vows?

In his psychologically penetrating and touching novel, Bragg addresses these questions, and others, by placing the lovers into their socioreligious context of twelfth-century France and by weaving in a modern thread. While composing a novel about the medieval couple, a historian named Arthur explains his writing choices to his twentysomething daughter, Julia, while leading up to a big reveal about why he left her mother.

Neither present-day character is fully fleshed out; they mainly exist to provide a running commentary on Abelard and Heloise’s decisions. However, the historical portions, steeped in the philosophies of the age, take readers deep into the characters’ minds as the pair fall in love, endure Heloise’s uncle’s wrath and betrayal, and live separate yet emotionally connected lives thereafter.

Love Without End is published by Arcade this month in the US (it was previously published in the UK by Sceptre). I wrote this review for Booklist's 10/15/19 issue and subsequently received a hardcover copy of the book in the mail. Interested in reading it for yourself?  Please fill out the form below to enter the giveaway.  One response per household, please; void where prohibited.  Deadline Friday, November 22nd.  Good luck!

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11/23/19: The giveaway is over.  Congratulations to Vivienne S., and hope you'll enjoy the read! Thanks to all who entered.

Six new and upcoming Austenesque reads for Janeites and historical fiction fans

Jane Austen fans, rejoice: historical novels with Austenesque themes are regaining prominence in the genre. Five to ten years ago, Pride and Prejudice retellings and sequels, and more novels inspired by her work, commanded a large presence.  Others have appeared periodically since. There are hundreds of them in all, and you can find many reviewed at Austenprose, Laurel Ann Nattress's impressively detailed blog dedicated to Austen's life and works. The half-dozen selections below are all new or forthcoming, and there's been buzz about them among fans. Even within this theme, the topics are diverse, including literary sequels featuring Austen characters, a novel re-imagining her sister's life, and another featuring characters inspired by her work.

This spotlight post forms part of a blog tour for Diana Birchall's The Bride of Northanger,which follows.

On the eve before her wedding, Catherine Morland learns from her intended, Henry Tilney, about a supposed centuries-old curse on his family. A level-headed young clergyman, Henry doesn't personally believe in curses, even though the specifics of this one appear to have materialized in recent generations.  The wedding gift the Tilneys receive from his father doesn't exactly bode well, either. So begins this witty, gently satirical Gothic mystery that continues the story of Austen's Northanger Abbey in prose resembling the original. White Soup Press, Sept. 2019. [see on Goodreads]

Subtitled "A Pride & Prejudice Novel," Greeley's debut novel centers on Charlotte Collins, who had married the pompous vicar Mr. Collins, and in doing so chose practicality over personal contentment. But what happens when she meets a man, a kind local farmer, who seems interested in what she has to say? William Morrow, Dec. 2019. [see on Goodreads]

Mary Bennet, the plain, book-loving middle daughter in Pride and Prejudice, lives in the shadow of her more vibrant sisters, but here readers see her through her own eyes, examining the circumstances that shaped her and the motivations for her personal growth. Henry Holt, March 2020. [see on Goodreads]

Cassandra Austen, beloved older sister and friend of Jane, is granted center stage in Hornby's novel, which depicts her as a woman in her sixties, long after Jane has passed away, and also re-creates the scenarios which caused her to destroy their faithful correspondence. What revelations did those letters contain, and what might they have told us about both Jane and Cassandra?  Flatiron, April 2020. [see on Goodreads]

I had the opportunity to read The Jane Austen Society via Edelweiss, after seeing recommendations on social media, and loved it. Debut novelist Jenner sets her gently charming story in Chawton, the Hampshire village where Austen lived at the end of her life. In the post-WWII years, a group of individuals from various walks of life are drawn together to form a literary society to celebrate and preserve the memory of their favorite author. The cast exhibits their own Austenesque dramas, but even newcomers to Austen should enjoy this one. St. Martin's, May 2020. [see on Goodreads]

An unfinished Austen work has proven too tempting for many novelists to resist. Focusing on Emma Watson, youngest daughter of a clergyman, Irish writer Servitova begins with Austen's work and then continues her heroine's story, following with what happens after Emma leaves her wealthy aunt's home and returns to live under her father's roof. Wooster Publishing, Sept. 2019. [see on Goodreads]

Please follow along with more stops on the blog tour via Austenprose.

Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner, a tale of two Jewish sisters across 70 years

Spanning seventy years in two sisters’ lives, this is Jennifer Weiner’s first historical novel, and it’s an impressive one. As children, Jo and Bethie Kaufman feel slotted into categories: Jo the sports-loving tomboy who perplexes their rigid mother, and Bethie the pretty, well-behaved daughter. It’s 1951, and the Kaufmans have moved from multi-ethnic downtown Detroit to a “safe” Jewish neighborhood. To better assimilate, their black maid, Mae, is replaced, and with her goes Mae’s daughter, Jo’s good friend.

Bethie and Jo’s probable paths get derailed by several awful events. Over the decades, through college at Michigan and other happenings related in richly detailed yet swiftly-paced prose, their roles turn inside out. Jo, a lesbian and social activist, finds herself a suburban mother of three, and Bethie, who loses herself in ‘60s counterculture, becomes a restless adventurer. Jo loves her children, but neither woman is content, a feeling they see about the other but can’t acknowledge in themselves. Circumstances change, but the return to happiness is complicated.

Poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote: “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” In her introduction, Weiner says she has this quote in mind while writing, and it fits her honest, feminist approach. Through Jo and Bethie’s experiences, she shows how women support and fail one another, and how the pressure to conform to society’s expectations takes a different shape in each era. Jo and Bethie are white, but Weiner also shows how women of color had an even tougher road.

There are many seamless cultural references, from civil rights picketing to Joan Baez at Newport (and if you’re of a certain age, you may get the Jell-O jingle stuck in your head). Smart, authentic, and full of human nature’s internal truths, Mrs. Everything is more than “fiction for women”—it’s a vibrant American story.

Mrs. Everything was published by Atria this summer, and I'd read it from an Edelweiss e-copy and reviewed it for November's Historical Novels Review.  You can read more about the background to the novel, including details on how Jo's character was partly inspired by her mother's life, in Weiner's interview with Parade Magazine.