Sisterhood, ghosts, and the meaning of freedom in Erin Crosby Eckstine's Junie, set in 1860s Alabama

The narrative voice in Junie sounds so assured that you wouldn’t realize it was a debut. The title character, just sixteen in 1860, has lived her whole life on Bellereine Plantation in rural central Alabama, as “property” of the McQueen family. Junie has hopes and dreams like any young woman, and her interior life is fully and richly described.

Although she shares household duties with her family—including her loving grandparents, Auntie Marilla, and cousin Bess—she primarily acts as companion to her white master’s daughter, Violet, who taught her to read. The teenagers share confidences and thoughts on literature; Junie has a fondness for British poetry, while her relatives worry that her head’s too much in the clouds.

Junie’s world is about to change. Already in financial distress due to the master’s alcoholism and irresponsibility, the McQueens are becoming nervous about potential war. When Mr. Beauregard Taylor, a wealthy suitor for Violet’s hand, arrives to stay at Bellereine, Junie—fearful of what Violet’s marriage will mean for her—undertakes a daring nighttime excursion that awakens the spirit of her late sister, Minnie, who had died after saving Junie from drowning. Minnie has several demands for Junie to accomplish on her behalf, and fulfilling them unearths terrible truths about life at Bellereine.

The eeriness of the ghostly visitations stands in effective contrast with the verdant beauty of the woods that Junie loves. The plotting is superb, with many unforeseen twists, and Junie is a compelling creation. Her growing closeness to the Taylors’ coachman, Caleb, is depicted with tender realism. Knowing that enslaved people’s futures aren’t their own, both hesitate to become too close. Still innocent in many ways as the novel begins, Junie is repeatedly tested, and she recalibrates the meaning of friendship, freedom, and sisterhood with every shocking revelation.

Erin Crosby Eckstine's Junie was published yesterday by Ballantine. This review was written for the Historical Novels Review's February issue. I was glad to see online, afterward, that Junie was picked up for the Good Morning America book club; it's their February pick.

Historical fiction winners from the 2025 American Library Association Book and Media Awards

The American Library Association and its RUSA division recently announced the winners in their annual Book and Media Awards. I always like hearing about these because the judging is done by librarians, and there are few national awards just for historical fiction. And because historical novels cross over into other genres (you’ve heard me discuss this before), the winners fall into multiple categories as well. This post focuses on fiction for adults.

On the Reading List, the ALA's annual awards in eight genre fiction categories, the award for Historical Fiction was won by The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali, about women’s friendship in the politically volatile world of 1950s Iran.

The shortlist of Honor Titles for historical fiction includes:

All We Were Promised by Ashton Lattimore (1830s Philadelphia)
The Briar Club by Kate Quinn (1950s Washington, DC)
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (18th-century Maine)
Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi (15th-century West Africa)

Leigh Bardugo’s The Familiar, Jewish-themed historical fantasy set in Renaissance-era Madrid, won in the Fantasy category, and the multi-period Kristin Perrin’s How to Solve Your Own Murder was rated tops in the Mystery category. The Romance category winner was Cat Sebastian’s You Should Be So Lucky, a gay sports-themed romance set in 1960s NYC.

The 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction went to Percival Everett’s James, his retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the character Jim’s perspective.

On the Listen List for excellence in audiobook narration:

The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James. Narrated by Lee Osorio. A “magic realism western.”
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. Narrated by Jane Oppenheimer.
James by Percival Everett. Narrated by Dominic Hoffman.

On the Notable Books List, which includes nonfiction and literary fiction, we have:

James by Percival Everett
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (multigenerational epic about trauma inflicted on Native Americans)
Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor (coming of age on a Welsh island in the 1930s)
Wolf at the Table by Adam Rapp (a decades-spanning story about an American family’s proximity to violence)

Congrats to the winners!

The Diamond and the Duke, a Napoleonic-era romance with a Beauty-and-the-Beast subplot

Lady Eleanor “Ellie” Balfour has loved Wesley Audley, illegitimate son of the Duke of Bentley, ever since he saw her practicing swordplay on her family’s Leeds estate as a teenager. He won her heart with his honesty, a refreshing change from her older brothers’ platitudes and her late father’s physical cruelty.

Several years later, Captain Audley returns from the Belgian battlefields injured and broken, not realizing that the lovingly supportive letters he’d received overseas had secretly been penned by Ellie, rather than the old girlfriend whose name Ellie had carefully signed. When Ellie looks at Wesley, she sees a kindred spirit and strives to heal him, if only he can bring his walls down. In truth, she’s in desperate need of healing herself.

This emotionally rich mixture of "Beauty and the Beast," Cyrano, and Bridgerton-style saga, set in the early 19th century, offers a multiplicity of romance tropes, which feels overcrowded at times, especially when the fake-relationship subplot appears. But Caldwell strikes a good balance between the serious theme of abuse recovery and the flirtatious hubbub of a pre-Regency London Season, and the couple’s visit to a female bonesetter adds originality. It’s a complicated road, but these wounded characters well deserve their happy ending.

The Diamond and the Duke was published by Berkley in 2024, and I covered it for the Historical Novels Review initially.

Caldwell is an impressively prolific Regency author. I receive many pitches for reviewing historical romances, and it's been interesting to see, in recent years, how readers and publishers have been leaning into romance tropes and denoting the specific plot pattern(s) the novel fits into. Examples include forced proximity, enemies-to-lovers, fake relationships, and so forth. One Amazon review describes this book as a "wounded warrior" romance, so there's another trope right there. Then, knowing what to expect, readers get to look forward to how these scenarios play out with each couple and setting. When an author tries to squeeze many of these tropes into a single book, as happened here, it gets to be a little much, but I did appreciate the original touches Caldwell added.

The past echoes through the present in Charmaine Wilkerson's multi-period Good Dirt

Ranging across time and distance, Charmaine Wilkerson’s second novel (after the highly acclaimed Black Cake) stitches together a meaningful collection of stories about a proud American family and their most cherished heirloom, an oversized stone jar crafted by an enslaved potter in the early 19th century.

The premise reminded me of Tiya Miles’ All That She Carried, the National Book Award-winning historical narrative that traces the journey from slavery to freedom through a cotton sack passed down through generations, and I mentally nodded to see it mentioned as an influence in Wilkerson’s afterword.

In 2019, after her white fiancé fails to show at their wedding, Ebby Freeman takes off to rural France for a respite stay as caretaker for a friend’s rental cottage. The Freemans, well-off African Americans from New England, have a long, storied history involving the Tuskegee airmen and an early female physician, among others. The tragic and shocking murder of Ebby’s older brother Baz during a home invasion in 2000, which ten-year-old Ebby witnessed, turned an uncomfortable spotlight on the family during their grieving. The stone jug, called “Old Mo” for the initials (MO) carved into its side, had been broken during the crime.

Ebby’s failed relationship feels like an addition to their horrible luck, and when her ex, Henry, turns up to rent the French cottage (not as coincidental as this makes it sound) with his new girlfriend, Ebby has an overwhelming urge to run – but she doesn’t. Episodes from Old Mo’s history reveal themselves as Ebby turns her writing talents to retelling the “jug stories” she learned in childhood.

Good Dirt is mostly contemporary and offers the strongest narrative continuity in these sections. The historical segments, which grow more prominent after the midpoint, introduce a collection of important figures from the Freemans’ past: their foremother Kandia, captured in Africa; her son Moses, who inherits her pottery talents; and his artisan brother-in-law Willis, who flees the South Carolina backcountry for Massachusetts and adopts a new name; and a diversity of other people, Black, Native, and white.

The plot has ample surprises, including an unfolding mystery. It all adds up to a multi-voiced journey into American history, the forces that bend and shape us, and the courage in embarking on a new life.

Good Dirt will be published by Ballantine next week, and I read it from a NetGalley copy.

Review of Darry Fraser's The Night on the Darling River, set in late 19th-century Australia

On an evening in late August 1894, a mob of union sheepshearers boarded the paddle-steamer Rodney at its mooring along the Darling River in New South Wales, intent on overtaking the non-union workers heading upriver in defiance of a long-running strike. Darry Fraser deftly incorporates the burning and sinking of the Rodney, a pivotal event in Australian labor history, into a storyline about a host of worn-down characters desperate to improve their lives.

Tess Hawthorn, Alby Slattery, Bram Kempster, and Harry Goodwin grew up as farmers’ children in the river town of Echuca in Victoria, more thrown together by circumstance than friends. Now adults in their early thirties, the four have a convoluted history behind them, and more yet to come.

Tess ends up on the Rodney by accident. Fifteen years married to the abusive Alby, she courageously dons a disguise and flees their home but gets caught up in violence at the wharf and is forced onto the wrong boat. Also aboard are Bram, a reserved man who’s always loved Tess unrequitedly, as well as Alby – each for different reasons. Once Alby discovers Tess there, his anger is swift and irrevocable.

Their interactions move the story forward as their circumstances and environments change, including the rising floodwaters around Echuca. Fraser clearly adores rural Australia and powerfully re-creates it on the page, and her multifaceted characters feel like they belong there. Can Tess overcome her pride and self-protectiveness to accept the help she needs, and will she ever appreciate Bram for himself? After years of rejection and his own losses, does he even still want her? There’s also Harry, Tess’s dashing former crush, always caught up in a new scheme or three.

Into this tangled mix of personalities, Fraser drops in a zippy new character, Miss Eugenia Osborne. Her viewpoint is fabulous. Unlike Tess, “Jeanie” is a confident, wealthy, spoiled woman with a lusty appetite for burly men. Can she really be as superficial as she appears?

While Tess’s journey shows the author’s skill and sensitivity in depicting recovery from domestic abuse, Jeanie’s viewpoint adds unexpected humor. The odds are stacked against women in these depressed times, as evoked so convincingly by Fraser, and she and Tess, equally determined, have different ways of pushing through and surviving.

The Night on the Darling River was published by HQ Fiction (Australia) in December, and it's available for sale in the US on Kindle. Thanks to the publisher for the review copy via Austenprose; this review is part of the blog tour for the book.

Read more about the PS Rodney, whose shipwreck is now a heritage site in New South Wales, at ABC News Australia.

Haunting family secrets across three generations in Ireland and America in Catherine Airey's Confessions

Airey’s intoxicating debut is much more than a saga following young women of Irish heritage across three generations.

Sixteen-year-old Cora Brady, orphaned after her accountant father’s death in 9/11, roams restlessly through Manhattan and her own memories of her artist mother’s suicide years earlier. A letter from an unknown aunt in Burtonport, County Donegal, which Cora recognizes as the setting of a choose-your-own-adventure computer game from her childhood, leads her to her parents’ Irish homeland and an unusual house. Text from the game acts as a framing device, an inspired authorial choice that increasingly deepens in meaning.

Beginning in 1974, in Ireland and New York, sisters Máire and Róisín Dooley come of age, finding romance and enduring displacement and emotional trauma. Much later, Cora’s daughter Lyca seeks out her family’s missing pieces.

Each narrative, conversationally yet eloquently phrased, has a bracing openness that transfixes one’s attention. Women seeking outlets for their tumbling emotions—via writing, art, and more—weave through this polyphonic story, as do the secrets and interpersonal connections that invisibly scaffold their lives. 

This title is also recommended for YA readers, about which I wrote: Mature teens will be drawn into the honest storytelling and eager to discover how all the tales link up.

Confessions will be published by Mariner/HarperCollins next week; Viking Books (UK) is the British publisher. I wrote this draft review for the November 1 issue of Booklist.

There's so much more that can be said, beyond what a 175-word review can offer. The computer game from Cora's childhood is called "Scream School," which is also the novel's original title from when it went out on submission. However, it was changed on the advice of the US publisher, so as not to be misleading (it isn't horror fiction).  The game features two Irish sisters who need to race against time to save the residents of a boarding school before they disappear. The 1970s-era setting comes through vividly in the storyline, which reflects the social attitudes of the time. Curious yet?  Read more about the author's personal and writing background at EchoLive.ie.

Short reviews of four historical novels about uncommon women

Happy New Year!  This is my 1900th blog post, with brief reviews of four recommended historical novels I've read over the past month or so. If you've read any or would like to, please comment.

With my best wishes for good reading for everyone in 2025!

Elena Morandi has unusual ambitions for a young woman in Bologna of 1575: to become a tailor, an occupation forbidden to females, and to expose the powerful, depraved nobleman who had abused her and the other girls living in the Baraccano Orphanage. Elena’s spirited narration sees her through several missteps as she finds an unofficial family of supporters in the growing Renaissance city.

From the hustle and bustle of a master tailor’s workshop to the studio of the yet-to-be-famous Carracci painters, Bologna proves to be as alluring as the better-known Rome and Florence. The cast is realistically diverse, including a Black seamstress who becomes Elena’s friend (she’s depicted in Annibale Carracci’s Portrait of a Woman Holding a Clock). Debut novelist Virgo is herself a talented craftswoman as she works elegant solutions out of complex plotting dilemmas in City of Silk.

Even if you’re a devoted reader of Victorian gothics, you won’t have encountered anything quite like Fayne. A unique masterpiece of the genre, Ann-Marie MacDonald’s novel is a 700-plus page brick of a book that, once past the elaborate opening chapters, was near-impossible for me to put down. Charlotte Bell’s father has always encouraged her scientific inquisitiveness, and when he invites a male tutor to his sprawling, remote estate in the English-Scottish borderlands to continue his motherless twelve-year-old daughter’s education, countless secrets – including the unspoken medical condition that keeps her isolated – begin unraveling.

The less you know at the outset, the more surprises await. Fayne left me pondering established gender roles and admiring the witty language (one dinner party scene is utterly magnificent), but I especially loved the author’s ability to build up layers of mystery and reshape gothic tropes with every reveal. What a shame it wasn't published in the US (although it's available for sale here).

Alice Kyteler, daughter of a prosperous innkeeper and moneylender in Kilkenny in 1279, is an outspoken and haughty young woman who developed a thick skin out of self-preservation against those who covet her beauty and power: “I am sixteen years alone in this skin, and with each season, their hunger for me increases.” Alice has the dubious renown of being the first woman condemned for witchcraft in Ireland, but in Molly Aitken’s fierce portrait, Bright I Burn, this false accusation by a malicious bishop is just one part of her extraordinary story.

Unlike the stereotypical independently-minded female in medieval-set fiction, Alice knows she must marry – “Few would choose a woman banker if she were unwed” – and has a succession of rich husbands. Whispers follow when they die under suspicious circumstances. The novel has been critiqued for its lack of large-scale worldbuilding, but I found the scene-setting well-drawn, with a close focus fitting its subject. While not guilty of the satanic crimes she was tried for, this bold, earthy Alice, with her uncompromising determination to exist on her own terms, is the defiant opposite of innocent.

Lucy Holland’s historical fantasy Song of the Huntress has a complex setup that takes extended verbiage to explain, just like in the novel itself. When she’s offered enough power to vanquish Queen Boudica’s Roman enemies in the 1st century CE, her lover, Herla, foolishly grabs it. Problem is, Herla’s benefactor was Gwyn ap Nudd, lord of the Otherworld, who condemns her to lead the Wild Hunt through the ages, killing with uncontrollable bloodlust whenever the moon is old.

Centuries pass. When Herla reappears in the time of King Ine and Queen Æthelburg of Wessex, she somehow finds the ability to resist her murderous urges – temporarily – and she and Æthelburg, warrior women both, feel a slow-burning mutual attraction. Besides ongoing tensions with other Saxon kingdoms and native Britons, Æthelburg is angered that only Ine takes her abilities seriously, even as he remains romantically distant.

The novel’s premise is a super-creative mashup of eras, and the storyline of dark magic re-emerging in 8th-century England makes an entertaining blend of history and the supernatural. But I found the pace very slow at times, and for a feminist novel, it's curious that Ine’s storyline held my attention the most. Ine loves his wife but isn’t attracted to her, he daringly prefers alliances to fighting, and his coming to terms with a vein of reawakened power is truly compelling.

Publishing details:

Glennis Virgo, City of Silk, Allison & Busby (Nov. 2024)
Ann-Marie MacDonald, Fayne, Vintage Canada (March 2024)
Molly Aitken, Bright I Burn, Knopf (Sept. 2024)
Lucy Holland, Song of the Huntress, Redhook (March 2024)

The Instrumentalist reinterprets the life of an orphaned girl turned master violinist in 18th-century Venice

In 1696, a Venetian sex worker deposits her newborn in a small hole in the wall of the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage where nuns shelter unwanted girls who may otherwise have been drowned in the canals. The Pietà has a music school, and the baby, named Anna Maria, grows up to become its orchestra’s star violinist under the tutelage of maestro Antonio Vivaldi.

Constable’s debut is a passionate reimagining of Anna Maria’s story—and much of it must necessarily be reimagined. As with other artistic women from history, her work remains shadowy, and although Vivaldi wrote concertos for her, her specific contributions to his oeuvre are unknown.

Anna Maria burns with ambition. At eight, she knows she’s “destined for greatness,” and insists that her teacher guide her in honing her ferocious talents. She develops close friendships with other girls but casts them aside; her music demands full attention. In short, she’s a diva-in-training, and Constable urges readers to consider not only what it takes for women to succeed in a repressive era, but also what this single-minded drive takes away from them. Anna Maria is a synesthete who sees music in color, and these passages (“it trembles and fragments before her eyes… a thousand shades of gold and auburn and maroon”) immerse the reader in swirls of brilliant sound and images.

As Anna Maria uses Vivaldi (who’s never named as such) to pursue her goals, her teacher is also using her. “I am a composer. Instrumentalists are forgotten,” he tells her, and her original compositions are stolen and subsumed into his. The story over-relies on binary extremes such as this, and her petulance and self-entitlement feel very modern. Fortunately, the concluding chapters show greater emotional subtlety. You may come away from this novel unsure if you’ve met the real Anna Maria, but it has a sweep and urgency that’s hard to resist.

The Instrumentalist was published by Simon & Schuster (US) and Bloomsbury (UK), and I reviewed it initially for November's Historical Novels Review.  This isn't the first novel about Vivaldi and the violin school at the Ospedale della Pietà; others include Laurel Corona's The Four Seasons, Barbara Quick's Vivaldi's Virgins, and Alyssa Palombo's The Violinist of Venice. Read more about the author's writing process in her article for The Guardian.

Michelle Cameron's Babylon illuminates life during the Jewish exile in ancient Babylon

Babylon is engrossing from start to finish. Michelle Cameron’s novels illustrate the lives of the Jewish people (especially women) at times and places rarely explored in fiction. I’ve enjoyed The Fruit of Her Hands (13th-century Europe) and Beyond the Ghetto Gates (Napoleonic-era Italy), and this one is even better.

The story begins in 586 BCE, as Chaldean soldiers in the army of Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon’s mighty ruler, overtake the prosperous farm outside Jerusalem where a young woman named Sarah lives with her parents, brother, and cousin. After her other relatives are killed, Sarah and her cousin Reuven are forcibly marched, along with numerous other captives, on the lengthy journey to Babylon. Some of the enslaved Judeans are chosen to be servants at the royal palace; others are settled on farms, with orders to grow specific crops. The characters undergo difficult ordeals, presented unflinchingly yet with great compassion. Sarah always yearns for the day she’ll see her farm again and keeps faith that the Judeans will be allowed to return. However, while they preserve their customs and faith in this very foreign land, there’s no denying the allure of the dazzling riches at court.

Babylon spans over eighty years and three generations, with genealogical charts in the opening pages for the novel’s three principal families: Sarah and her lineage, the Babylonian royals, and the people who take up residence on the farm Sarah was forced to abandon. While I love that the charts exist, I didn’t consult them until I was done, since I didn’t want to know in advance which relationships would be forming. This is an epic novel, and Cameron has mastered the art of moving through a wide swath of time without choppiness and without losing readers’ emotional connection to the characters. And the characters themselves are a colorful and interesting bunch, including vain and power-hungry princesses, farmers, talented musicians, Biblical prophets, and a dedicated scribe who chronicles happenings for posterity.

Individual Judeans and the people as a whole work through questions relating to assimilation – intermarriage, adoption of a new land’s customs and religious rituals, and more – but don’t find simple answers. It’s altogether an immersive tale, told with an underlying sense of warmth, about resilience during adversity, family, faith, and how people instill the meaning of home in their daily lives even while far away.

Babylon was published last year by Wicked Son/Post Hill Press; I read it from a personal copy.

Ten more recent indie-published historical novels to check out

Here are ten more indie-published historical novels worth investigating. It was great to see so much interest in my initial list of ten titles - thanks for all the feedback and shares.  Because of a Blogger quirk, the cover images below got uploaded in reverse alphabetical order by author, which I'm keeping in order to switch things up a bit. These novels feature many historical settings you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere in fiction.

Peter Young, the title character in Tvordi's debut, was a highly respected scholar who sounds like he was a decent overall fellow, too. As tutor to the young Scottish king, James VI, Peter's political skills and patience are tested when James's attractive French cousin, Esmé Stewart, arrives at court. June 2024. 

Australian writer A. M. Stuart's Harriet Gordon mystery series, set in early 20th-century Singapore, began with Berkley and is continuing via indie publishing. This fifth entry has her looking into a schoolgirl's death, complicating her relationship with her beau, a police inspector. Oct. 2024.

I've read and reviewed all of Elizabeth St.John's full-length historical novels, so I preordered The King's Intelligencer as soon as it went online. They're all well-researched, beautifully told stories based on people from her own family tree; many of the St.Johns played prominent roles in English history, though you may not recognize their names. This entry, standalone but connected to her earlier The Godmother's Secret, takes place in the 1670s as bones of young children (the lost princes?) are discovered in the Tower. October 2024.

S. K. Rizzolo has contributed guest essays here before, so you may recognize her name from that as well as from her Regency mystery series from Poisoned Pen Press. Safe in Death begins a new series featuring Esther Hardy, who turns amateur sleuth in Victorian England after a young woman's terrible murder. November 2024.

 

The Pirate's Physician is a companion standalone novella to Maroney's Sea and Stone Chronicles, set in the 15th-century Mediterranean world. A female medical student boards a ship to escape an unwanted marriage. Pirates and romantic intrigue in a setting you don't often see in fiction. I first discovered Maroney's work via the Historical Stories of Exile anthology. September 2024.

Described as "Gangs of New York for women," Battle Annie is based on Annie Walsh, a brick-hurler and gang leader active in the gritty world of railroad strikes on the streets of NYC's Hell's Kitchen in the late 19th century. She sounds like quite a character!  Annie and her ward, an orphaned guttersnipe, go on the run after a false murder accusation. I'd interviewed the author about her excellent novel Cinnamon Girl last year. Sept. 2024.

Susan Higginbotham always chooses interesting subjects for her biographical novels, and her research is thorough; so much so that in this case, a peer-reviewed journal article resulted from her new discoveries about the title character and her family. The Queen of the Platform stars Ernestine Rose, a Polish woman of Jewish heritage whose surprising path led her to become a noted public speaker and early women's rights activist in early America. I've read it and recommend it.  March 2024.

Any Hamilton fans here?  American Harlot reveals the backstory of Maria Reynolds, whose affair with Alexander Hamilton became early America's first major political sex scandal. Her tale is one of resilience and survival. I first read about this novel in Stephanie Dray's author newsletter. Sept. 2024.

Opening in France in 1793, The Greatest Thing evokes the first-person voice of a historical person who deserves more attention. Louis-Benoît Zamor was enslaved as a child and given as a "gift" to Madame du Barry, the last official mistress of Louis XV, King of France. This is the first in a trilogy; one additional novel has been published so far. November 2023.

Lexie Conyngham is an indie author from the Scottish Highlands whose books have been recommended on the CrimeThruTime e-list often. She has multiple historical mystery series, set between early medieval times and the 20th century, incorporating detailed research and dry wit. This first series entry follows Dr. Robert Wilson on his travels throughout Europe during the Regency era, where he encounters crimes. November 2023.

Jennifer S. Brown's The Whisper Sister is a fabulous tale of Prohibition-era NYC

In flapper-speak, a “whisper sister” was a female barkeep during Prohibition, a daring woman who kept booze flowing for eager customers in underground establishments. A more unlikely career choice could hardly be imagined for ten-year-old Malka Soffer when she arrives at Ellis Island in 1920 with her Mama and older brother, having traveled from Ukraine to join her father in New York after a long separation.

Her Papa seems barely recognizable without his long beard and yarmulke, and at school she gets a new American name: Minnie. Remarkably, her story of transformation, assimilation, and blood and chosen family never loses its believability through many sudden plot twists.

As with her debut, Modern Girls, Brown has a confident hand with character, and Minnie has vulnerabilities and a deep emotional strength. Young Minnie soon learns that her Papa has mysterious sources of power through connections to organized crime (though that phrase is never uttered), and when he buys a soda shop, she gleans it’s a front for a bar. She’s right – and rapidly falls in love with the unprepossessing joint on Baxter Street. Some years later, awful circumstances compel her to take over the place herself, leading her ever deeper into excitement and danger, to her brother Max’s dismay.

Minnie’s two spheres of existence feel immediate and real: the strong Jewish traditions her Yiddish-speaking Mama upholds at home, versus the alluring world of the speakeasy, where Minnie crafts original drinks and socializes with an affable trio of regulars. Brown pulls no punches in illustrating the era’s prejudices and violence, which was brutal and often premeditated. The prologue generates instant intrigue with a magnificent (and suspenseful) opening scene that repeats later on. A bravura performance, led by an original heroine who takes risks in bending rules.

The Whisper Sister (a phrase I'd never heard before and makes for a great title) was published by Lake Union in September, and I covered it initially for November's Historical Novels Review.  I also enjoyed the author's interview for Lilith Magazine, in which she discusses the novel's background and themes, Jewish identity, and more.

Signe Pike's The Shadowed Land delves into the possible Scottish roots of Arthurian legend

Personal transformations echo throughout Pike’s intensely felt third novel (following The Forgotten Kingdom, 2020) in an ongoing series about sixth-century Scotland’s political and religious conflicts. Grounded in intriguing new research, it brings to life the little-known stories of Languoreth of Strathclyde, a powerful early medieval queen, and Artúr mac Aedan, a war leader and prince of Dalriada—potentially the true, historic King Arthur behind the legends.

After the Battle of the Caledonian Wood, where the brutal Angles were defeated, the characters endure separate tests of fortitude. Languoreth, a pagan follower of the Old Way, grudgingly endures a treacherous former bishop’s presence in her lands while Artúr returns to Dalriada at his father’s behest.

The book’s title references the Pictish kingdom, where Languoreth’s daughter Angharad travels to hopefully apprentice herself to the druid Briochan. A valiant young woman with deep emotional reserves, Angharad undergoes physical and mystical trials during her quest.

There are perhaps too many viewpoints, but Pike enthusiastically transfers her affinity for ancient Celtic cultures to readers, and her interpretation of the Arthurian canon exudes originality.

The Shadowed Land was published this week by Atria/Simon & Schuster, and I reviewed it initially for Booklist. I had previously reviewed book one, The Lost Queen, and book two, The Forgotten Kingdom, but since the previous book came out over four years ago, it took some time to reacquaint myself with where the characters left off.  You really don't want to start with this book. Originally the series was planned as a trilogy, but the story doesn't end here.  There will be one more book to come.

Critics pick their favorite historical novels of 2024

It's not even December, and media outlets have been proclaiming their Best Books recommendations for 2024. I feel a bit sorry for those novels slated to come out next month! (Although to be fair, these may be included in roundups by pre-publication review sources.)

Here are the lists I've come across thus far.

As always, NPR's Books We Love crosses subgenres, age categories, and time periods (even ranging up through the 1980s) to present their annual collage of favorite historical novels: 44 of them.  If you prefer to see a list rather than a cover gallery, that's available too.

Writing for The Times (London), critics Nick Rennison and Antonia Senior pick the 10 best historical novels for 2024. This is paywalled, sorry, though if you have Apple News, you can read the article through the app. Some books included here that I haven't seen on other lists are Irish writer Kevin Barry's The Heart in Winter (set in 1890s Montana), Mary Horlock's The Stranger's Companion (1930s on the Channel Island of Sark), Hesse Phillips' Lightborne (Christopher Marlowe), and Rosanna Pike's A Little Trickerie (Tudor times).

The Washington Post (gift link) makes their picks, including Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s 54 Miles, Ashton Lattimore's All We Were Promised, and The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang, which is on NPR's list too.

The top 10 list in The Independent has been out for a few weeks, and is very different from that in the compilation above. Overlapping titles include Robert Harris's Precipice (which I also read and enjoyed, though it wasn't my favorite of his) and Tracy Chevalier's The Glassmaker.

The final round of Readers' Choice Awards at Goodreads is out, with ten books vying for the title (in theory). Voting is only open for the next day and a half. Just because I'm curious how closely popularity will correlate with the ultimate rankings, here they are, listed by the # of reviews posted in the system as of today:

The Women by Kristin Hannah - over 90K reviews

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon - 19,400+ reviews

James by Percival Everett - 13,800+ reviews

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn - 6700+ reviews

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult - 5300+ reviews

Husbands and Lovers by Beatriz Williams - 4600+ reviews

Anita del Monte Laughs Last by Xóchitl González - 3800+ reviews
The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali - 3600+ reviews

The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - 1200+ reviews

The Booklover's Library by Madeline Martin - 800+ reviews

Some books with higher #s of reviews were eliminated after the semifinals, so we'll see how this ends up.

Still to come: the New York Times list, which should be out in mid-December, and Library Journal's lists, out in their December issue.

Ten recent indie-published historical novels to check out

If you aren't paying attention to indie-published historical fiction, you don't have a full picture of what the genre has to offer to readers today. You're also missing out on some wonderful stories. The best of these novels, as with those from mainstream publishers, have excellent writing and editing as well as professional cover art. And with indies, authors are organizing all this on their own, plus handling their own publicity and marketing.

How did I go about choosing these? Some are by authors who have had previous novels out with big presses, so I've been following their writing paths for years. The historical fiction market is so focused on specific eras and trends that when I hear about a new novel by a writer who turned to self-publishing after a successful career with bigger presses, my ears perk up. (While not the focus for this post, this holds true for small presses too.)  These books frequently incorporate less familiar topics, settings, and approaches, and as a reader, I appreciate greater variety.  Others listed below came to my attention through reviews and recommendations from trusted sources, or because I've read and enjoyed previous books by their writers. This is the first of two (at least) posts.

Susan Wittig Albert has published a great many novels (mysteries) with NY presses, both on her own and co-written with her husband. Most of the books in her Hidden Women series of biographical novels, though, have been indie-published, including Loving Eleanor. Her latest, Someone Always Nearby, centers on Maria Chabot, a prominent promoter of Native American art, and a good friend to Georgia O'Keeffe. (November 2023)

The first novel in Elizabeth R. Andersen's Alewives of Colmar series was great fun. In Sleight of Hand, the followup to The Alewives, the three women brewers from 14th-century Alsace have another mystery on their hands when an unfortunate item shows up in one of their cooking pots.  (April 2024)

Pamela Belle's 17th-century Herons of Goldhayes saga, written in the '80s, still holds a treasured place on my bookshelf. The books in her Wintercombe series, following a Puritan woman and her family during the English Civil War, are also longtime favorites. A Parcel of Rogues, her first new novel in over 25 years, incorporates a different style and setting: the decadent, dangerous world of London and other English cities in the early 18th century. (June 2024)

Kinley Bryan's debut Sisters of the Sweetwater Fury opened my eyes to little-known Great Lakes history and the roles of women at the time. For her second novel, she moves back in time to the Civil War, following two millworker sisters forced to begin new lives far away from their Southern home. (May 2024)

The Lioness is biographical fiction about Jeanne de Clisson, known as the Lion of Brittany, a 14th-century privateer seeking justice for her late husband. The author has also written The Empress, a tie-in to the Netflix series of the same name about Empress Elisabeth of Austria, plus novels for younger readers. (November 2024)

Anne M. Kennedy's debut is historical adventure/suspense. Based on its first three chapters, it took home the silver medal in the Adventure category of the Historical Novel Society's First Chapters competition earlier this year. Opening in 1890 in the oil-rich capital of Azerbaijan, it follows a man's quest to solve a mystery involving his family, a jeweled artifact, and an encoded message. (September 2024)

Third and latest in her Cape May Historical Mystery series of standalone novels, The Night the Light Went Out is a locked room mystery of sorts set within a lighthouse during a violent storm along the New Jersey coast in the 1820s. The author also writes cozy mysteries and gothic suspense as Amy M. Reade. (August 2024)

After author Michelle Moran recommended this novel on social media, I had to go look it up. Tana Rebellis' novel is first in a duology about Julia the Younger, a Roman noblewoman and Emperor Augustus' granddaughter, who finds herself sent into exile after becoming pregnant with an illegitimate child.  (June 2024)

Tracey Warr specializes in historical fiction set in medieval times; previously published by Impress Books (UK), she has reissued her earlier novels under her own imprint along with new material, including this new book. Love's Knife, first in a series, introduces a female troubadour (trobairitz) who investigates a murder at the court of 11th-century Toulouse. (September 2024)

The Anny of the title is Anne Thackeray, oldest daughter of Vanity Fair's author, as she begins finding her own place in the world, amid family obligations and her own love affairs, after her father's death. Barbara Wright won the Spur award from Western Writers of America for her 2003 novel Plain Language. (June 2024)

The opening round is up for the 2024 Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction

Voting for the opening round in the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards is open for the next week, through November 24th. On the ballot for historical fiction are 20 titles, which appear in a random assortment.

I've read only two of these, The Great Divide and The Frozen River.  Much as I enjoyed these two, I'm going to take a wild guess that the ultimate winner for 2024 will be Kristin Hannah's The Women.  It has a 4.63 rating and, most importantly, 88,160 reviews already on Goodreads.  Nothing else comes close in terms of review numbers. But even though the novels on this grid with fewer than 1000 reviews don't stand much of a chance against very popular books, Goodreads remains a very useful tool for book discovery, and if you want more readers to get their eyes on a book that you highly recommend, have your say and vote for it, in hopes that it will make it through to the final round.  

Kristin Hannah's historical novels always fare well in this competition, but her previous novel, The Four Winds, lost to Taylor Jenkins Reid's Malibu Rising (which had more overall reviews) in 2021. 

Also, take a look at the initial picks for debut novels, since you'll find historicals there that didn't make the main category, like Ashton Lattimore's All We Were Promised, Ferdia Lennon's Glorious Exploits, Eve J. Chung's Daughters of Shandong, Elba Iris Pérez's The Things We Didn't Know, and O. O. Sangoyomi's Masquerade.

In the fantasy category are Rose Sutherland's A Sweet Sting of Salt, set in 1830s Nova Scotia; Katherine Arden's WWI novel The Warm Hands of Ghosts; Leigh Bardugo's Spanish Golden Age fantasy The Familiar; Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife, set in early 20th-century Manchuria; and Ann Liang's mythological Chinese retelling A Song to Drown Rivers.  There's strong reader interest in historical fantasy genre-blends. The horror category has historical novels in it too, namely Del Sandeen's This Cursed House and C. J. Cooke's The Book of Witching.

I don't vote for books I haven't read, so my choice for historical fiction went to Ariel Lawhon's The Frozen River.  We'll see how far it gets in the process. New books frequently get introduced for the final round, so I'll be curious to see those, too.

Rachel Blackmore's Costanza reveals the real woman behind a groundbreaking 17th-century sculpture

She has gazed out at viewers for nearly four centuries: eyes wide, lips parted, hair unkempt, expression determined and sensual. The marble portrait of Costanza Piccolomini, one-time mistress of Baroque master Gianlorenzo Bernini, appears so lifelike it could almost speak, but as Rachel Blackmore reminds us in her exceptional debut novel, the real woman deserves a voice that stands independently of the male regard.

In 1630s Rome, Costanza runs a respectable household as the wife of artisan Matteo Bonucelli, a kind but less-than-amorous man. Matteo’s new commission for St. Peter’s Basilica brings the couple into the company of its chief architect, “Il Cavaliere” himself. Attracted by her boldness, Bernini offers to tutor Costanza in art interpretation, events that soon see them tumbling into an affair, a situation her husband—whose interests lie elsewhere—willingly tolerates.

Heady with passion and her new elevated position in society, Costanza sets aside the warnings from Bernini’s old rival and her childhood best friend. Her first encounter with the marble bust Bernini surreptitiously crafts in her image is a masterly scene, showcasing the author’s descriptive prowess alongside Costanza’s realization about her lover’s character, how he views her, and what it means for her reputation.

History records the terrible harm that Bernini inflicted on Costanza, foreshadowed in the chilling prologue, but here the narrative is all hers, revealing in intimate fashion how she reacts to this shocking betrayal and endures a painful loss of pride before gaining sufficient wisdom to come into her own.

This novel serves as a necessary corrective to the historical tendency to glorify talented but violent men while leaving their victims as footnotes. Costanza proves especially powerful since it’s based in fact, and because Blackmore carefully exposes the power differential between the sexes from multiple angles.

Rachel Blackmore's Costanza was published by Renegade Books, an imprint of Dialogue Books/Little Brown UK, in August, and I reviewed it from a personal copy for November's Historical Novels Review. For US-based readers, it's available as an ebook (currently 99 cents on Kindle, for however long this lasts).

Also for the same HNR issue, Katherine Mezzacappa interviewed the author and Harriet Constable (The Instrumentalist) alongside a discussion of her own new novel, The Maiden of Florence, about how they all brought little-known historical Italian women back into the spotlight.  See also Blackmore's piece for The Observer about the real history behind the sculpture of Costanza.

In her author's note, Blackmore explains how she was spurred to write this novel out of fury over the murder of Londoner Sarah Everard in March 2021, and years of "endemic violence against women," as she writes, that has long gone unaddressed. Costanza's story, fortunately, is also one of survival, and if you're curious to learn more about this woman from history's shadows, I recommend it.

Eleanore of Avignon depicts a young woman's courageous path in medieval France

The Provençal city of Avignon in 1347-48 is rife with tension and drama, with the Catholic popes in residence, Queen Joanna of Naples seeking exoneration from her first husband’s murder, the arrival of the plague, and a stressed-out, decimated populace looking for someone to blame. In her debut, DeLozier takes full advantage of her setting’s potential with her exciting story. It’s a quest novel in a sense, encompassing a young woman’s mission to fulfill her calling as a healer while holding her family together in a perilous time.

Eleanore (Elea) and Margot Blanchet are the twin daughters of a papal notary and his late spouse, a talented midwife. One day while seeking herbal remedies outside the city gates, Elea runs into Guy “Guigo” de Chauliac, a man of modest birth who rose to become Pope Clement’s personal physician.

Through a combination of chance and clever negotiations, Elea becomes Guigo’s apprentice and, later, midwife to the expectant Queen Joanna while the deadly pestilence rages through the city. As Guigo and Elea pore over medical texts and tend to patients, desperate to discover a cure, she strives to juggle her multiple responsibilities.

As with other novels where invented characters play big roles in the lives of real people, some plot elements may raise eyebrows, and Elea, while courageous and resourceful, takes some careless risks. The pacing never flags; DeLozier paints the atmosphere clearly without weighty exposition, and the novel’s historical scaffolding shines, especially the details on the two types of plague and their symptoms (as was documented by the real Chauliac, an eminent medieval surgeon).

Elea faces personal danger in the form of a fanatical priest who once targeted her late mother, raising the stakes even higher. An entertaining novel about a woman’s strength and selflessness, unfair prejudice, and the sisterly bond.

Eleanore of Avignon is published next week by Dutton; I'd reviewed it from NetGalley for the Historical Novels Review. The novel made the LibraryReads list for November (the top ten fiction and nonfiction works chosen by US public library staff), which I think is terrific.  A debut novel set in a less familiar place in medieval times, and librarians and their readers are enthusiastic about it.  So let's have more of them! There is a thread related to witchcraft, so the novel fits that historical fiction trend as well.

For their next books, three prominent historical novelists are sticking with their genre roots

Several well-known historical novelists have announced their next books in recent weeks, and I found it especially interesting to see they're returning to (or in one case, staying with) the historical era and/or theme of their most popular books.

Just after the Frankfurt Book Fair began last week, Philippa Gregory's publishing team began getting the word out about her next historical, to be called Boleyn Traitor, focusing on Jane (Parker) Boleyn, the controversial sister-in-law of Anne who was rumored to have played a role in the downfall of two of Henry VIII's queens. Gregory has written about Jane before (she was a viewpoint character in her 2006 novel The Boleyn Inheritance) but the articles about the announcement refer mainly to her The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), her first biographical novel, whose huge success prompted a Tudor renaissance, so to speak, in the genre. 

2001: such a long time ago now.  This is making me feel old.

The pub date for Boleyn Traitor (HarperCollins) is a year from now, October 2025. Will this new book be any different, or just an extended version of the same story of Jane's life previously told?  We'll have to see, but I imagine there'll be some new interpretation.  It will be the first in a three-book series. Perhaps this means, also, that her Fairmile series, about the rise of an ordinary family in the 17th century, is officially complete at three books.

Not much to see here, really; these are the publishers' placeholder
covers, not the final ones.

Another novelist with strong roots in the 16th century is staying there; Alison Weir's next book, out in May 2025, will be The Cardinal, about Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the English statesman who became Henry VIII's chief adviser and the mentor to his successor, Thomas Cromwell.  Wolsey tumbled from power during the king's attempt to secure a divorce from Katharine of Aragon. This will be Weir's first full biographical novel about someone who isn't a member of a royal family, though he will certainly be a familiar name to readers of Tudor fiction. Nearly all of Weir's novels have been about Henry VIII and his relatives, and since I've reviewed nearly all her recent books for Booklist, I'd been curious to see whether she'd be choosing someone new from the era or moving on to something else.  The publishers are Ballantine (US/Canada) and Headline Review (UK).

Also just announced, Ken Follett's newly revealed Circle of Days takes place far back in the past, much earlier than his previous books, but like his breakout historical The Pillars of the Earth (from way back in 1989), it centers on the vision and building of a significant historical structure: Stonehenge.  Edward Rutherfurd has imagined this event in his Sarum, and Cecelia Holland in Pillar of the Sky, among others, but that won't stop me from reading Follett's version. It will be out in September 2025 from Grand Central (US/Canada) and Quercus (UK).

All three of these books will be highly promoted and will reach many readers who are already eagerly anticipating them. Will this translate into another Tudor (or even a prehistoric) fiction trend?  It's doubtful, but if you enjoy novels set in earlier time periods, you'll have these to look forward to next year.

Julia Park Tracey's Silence examines women's agency in Puritan-era Massachusetts

Steeped in the language and mores of an earlier time, Julia Park Tracey’s meditative and defiantly life-affirming novel Silence follows a young woman punished for speaking her mind during a period of immense personal trauma.

A member of a Separatist Puritan community in seaside Hingham, Massachusetts in 1722, Silence Marsh, the gentle daughter of the village weaver, enjoys a playful, loving relationship with her husband David, a local constable. Then, in rapid, tragic succession, Silence endures the losses of three adored family members, a situation that sees her returning to live with her widowed father in her childhood home. After an outburst in church when she questions a chastening sermon and the purpose of a God who would cause her such grief, authorities sentence her to a series of humiliating public acts as well as a full year of enforced silence, with threats of worse if she doesn’t obey.

Over the subsequent months, Silence – unable to communicate verbally – looks inward, noting the people who shun her and pass judgment (like the parson’s sour-tongued wife) as well as those who see her suffering and try to help. Among the latter is Daniel Greenleaf, a physician from Boston who recommends walks in the fresh air and reading novels. The secret friendship between Silence and the parson’s preteen daughter also raises both their spirits.

Silence’s first-person narrative has the cadences of early New England colonial speech without feeling overly archaic. Finely crafted details on household items, duties, and people’s roles in the community add to the historical atmosphere. (One quibble: the dour royal magistrate, a frighteningly realistic figure, should be called “Sir George,” not “Sir Fellows.”) Silence’s philosophical struggles feel true to the time: a woman discovering her voice in a society that denies its value. Even her father, while caring and sympathetic, insists that she conform, heed the authorities, and accept her penance.

But: “I know your religion’s great men call for treating the bodily humours and for obeying the will of God, but God has given us the great gift of free will to learn and grow,” Dr. Greenleaf tells her. He perceives her melancholia as an illness, not the manifestation of sin, and explains that he wants to treat her accordingly. The novel explores, with carefulness and great compassion, how Silence begins to wrap her mind around this unfamiliar concept, one completely opposite to her religious upbringing. In this, Silence embodies all women trapped in a cruel, repressive situation as she slowly gains the wisdom and courage – and burning fury – to break away from it.

In the end, as accusations of witchcraft swirl through Hingham, Silence must decide how to use her voice, or whether she should use it at all. There are no simple answers, but Silence, after the most painful year of her life, knows the importance of making her own choice.

Silence was published by Sibylline Press, a publisher focusing on works by women over 50, in September; my thanks to them for the review copy. The main character is based on the author's 7th great-grandmother.

Kimberly Brock's The Fabled Earth unfolds a multilayered mystery surrounding Georgia's Cumberland Island

In her third novel, Brock (The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare, 2022) proves marvelously adept at intertwining mythic stories with contemporary reality and showing how people reconcile the two.

In 1959, illustrator Cleo Woodbine has lived alone on a tiny isle near Georgia’s Cumberland Island ever since the terrible events of one long-ago summer. When she receives a mailed obituary for a woman she knew back then, it rocks her world and introduces her to others seeking connection, including Frances Flood, the late woman’s daughter, and young, widowed innkeeper Audrey Howell. Their viewpoints alternate alongside Cleo’s experiences in 1932, when a night of storytelling around a bonfire culminated in two young men’s drownings and the potential sighting of a river siren.

While tackling issues of race and class prejudice, Brock’s lush, multi-layered writing begs to be read slowly as she gently unfolds the mysteries of this picturesque yet haunted Southern landscape, where once-elegant Carnegie mansions still stand. An ideal choice for admirers of Delia Owens, Sarah Loudin Thomas, and Sarah Addison Allen.

The Fabled Earth is published this month by Harper Muse, and I originally wrote this review for Booklist's September 15th issue. Doesn't this novel have a gorgeous cover?  You can read more about the Carnegie mansions on Cumberland Island, and see photos of the beautiful landscape, via this blog post written by Vann Helms.

Victoria Thompson's Murder in Rose Hill delves into Gilded Age medical cures and family dynamics

Anyone conducting research in Gilded Age news archives will note the proliferation of ads for patent medicines: concoctions promoted as cure-alls for myriad ailments. The industry was notoriously unregulated, with many such products either ineffective or dangerously addictive.

Set in 1901 Manhattan, Murder in Rose Hill homes in on this interesting subject. Louisa Rodgers, secretary and would-be journalist at New Century magazine, has been found strangled in her workplace’s lobby, days after the young woman had interviewed former midwife Sarah Malloy at her charity clinic, requesting background for a planned exposé about these tonics. Frank Malloy, private investigator and ex-police detective, is hired by Louisa’s distraught father since the cops dismiss the case as a random attack.

This cozy mystery presents the investigative process as a family affair, with Sarah, Frank, their nanny/secretary Maeve, and her beau Gino hustling through the city, pursuing leads and trying to suss out who’s lying. There’s parental involvement, too, with both Mother Malloy and Sarah’s society-maven mother, Elizabeth, contributing entertainingly astute observations. Besides the intricate process of determining motive, one gripping subplot involves the Malloys’ piecing together of Louisa’s character. “What an odd family,” Frank thinks about the Rodgerses after he meets them all and sees how Louisa’s independent streak stirred up resentment. Louisa’s relatives, her boss, a coworker, and patent medicine manufacturers, among others, land on the suspect list.

Readers won’t have trouble getting oriented if they start with this 27th volume in the Gaslight Mysteries, though the constantly revolving viewpoint takes some getting used to, and Sarah flirting with her husband on the doorstep of Louisa’s funeral feels awkward. Long-time followers of the series may not mind, and the book takes a well-researched look at social and health issues from the era, specifically those affecting older women.

Murder in Rose Hill was published in late April by Berkley, and I'd reviewed it for the Historical Novels Review's August issue. I happened to be researching in old newspapers for a work project at the time I read it, which led to a nice tie-in with the novel. Sadly, Victoria Thompson passed away on August 23rd from cancer. In addition to her long-running Gaslight Mysteries (the first of which was published in 1999), she also authored the Counterfeit Lady novels featuring a female con artist in Gilded Age New York.