Jessie Burton

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Utah

Alive with the magic of 18th-century Amsterdam, an enchanting, fantastical stand-alone companion novel to the sensational New York Times bestseller The Miniaturist, which has sold over two million copies worldwide.

Amsterdam in the year 1705. It is Thea Brandt's eighteenth birthday. She is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms, but life at home is increasingly difficult. Her father Otto and her Aunt Nella argue endlessly over their financial fate, selling off furniture in a desperate attempt to hold on to the family home.

As catastrophe threatens to engulf the household, Thea seeks refuge in Amsterdam's playhouses. She loves the performances, and the stolen moments afterwards are even better. In the backrooms of her favorite theater, Thea can spend a few precious minutes with her secret lover, Walter, the chief set-painter, a man adept at creating the perfect environments for comedies and tragedies to flourish. The thrill of their hidden romance offers Thea an exciting distraction from home. But it also puts her in mind of another secret that threatens to overwhelm the present: Thea knows her birthday marks the day her mother, Marin, died in labor. Thea's family refuses to share the details of this story, just as they seem terrified to speak of "the miniaturist" - a shadowy figure from their past who is possessed of uncanny abilities to capture that which is hidden.

Aunt Nella believes the solution to all Thea's problems is to find her a husband who will guarantee her future. An unexpected invitation to Amsterdam's most exclusive ball seems like a golden opportunity. But when Thea finds, on her doorstep, a parcel containing a miniature figure of Walter, it becomes clear that someone out there has another fate in mind for the family . . .

A feat of sweeping, magical storytelling, The House of Fortune is an unputdownable novel about love and obsession, family and loyalty, and the fantastic power of secrets.

The House of Fortune

7d5c7978-8831-4e0b-9973-d28611667ad0-1

Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Colorado

A Novel

A dazzling epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award finalist Sabrina & Corina

A Phenomenal Book Club Pick * "Sometimes you just step into a book and let it wash over you, like you're swimming under a big, sparkling night sky."--Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You

ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022--The Millions, Electric Lit, Lit Hub, Book Riot

There is one every generation, a seer who keeps the stories.

Luz "Little Light" Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors' origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.

Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine's singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love--filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz.

Woman of Light

9d57481c-a1c3-4f46-8172-5cd725b9eafb-1

#hardcover #fiction #historical #historicalfiction #19thcentury #british #adultfiction #adult #carnival #portraitoftwoextraordinarywomen 

Tennessee

From the Booker short-listed author of "Jamrach's Menagerie" comes the extraordinary, moving, and unsettling tale of a woman, branded a freak from birth, who becomes an international sensation but longs for genuine human connection "London had the best freaks, always had. The Egyptian Hall, the Promenade of Wonders, the Siamese twins, pinheads, midgets, cannibals, giants, living skeletons, the fat, the hairy, the legless, the armless, the noseless, London had seen it all. In the Hall of Ugliness the competition was stiff. But noone had ever seen anything quite like Julia . . ." Pronounced by the most eminent physician of the day to be "a true hybrid wherein the nature of woman presides over that of the brute," Julia Pastrana stood apart from the other carnival acts. She was fluent in English, French and Spanish, an accomplished musician with an exquisite singing voice, equally at ease riding horseback and turning pirouettes but all anyone noticed was her utterly unusual face. Alternately vilified and celebrated, Julia toured through New Orleans, New York, London, Berlin, Vienna, and Moscow, often hobknobbing with high society as she made her fame and fortune. Beneath the flashy lights and thunderous applause lies a bright, compassionate young woman who only wants people to see beyond her hairy visage and perhaps, the chance for love. When Julia visits a mysterious shaman in the back alleys of New Orleans, he gives her a potion and says that she'll find a man within the year. Sure enough, Julia soon meets Theodore Lent, a boyishly charming showman who catapults Julia onto the global stage. As they travel the world, the two fall into an easy intimacy, but the question of whether Theo truly cares for Julia or if his management is just a gentler form of exploitation lingers heavily with every kind word and soft embrace. Stunningly written and deeply compelling, " Orphans of the Carnival" is a haunting examination of how we define ourselves and, ultimately, of what it means to be human."

Orphans of the Carnival

42bfead4-6012-4fdc-8dd4-e0384c50833e-1

Elizabeth Wetmore

Nevada

Written with the haunting emotional power of Elizabeth Strout and Barbara Kingsolver, an astonishing debut novel that explores the lingering effects of a brutal crime on the women of one small Texas oil town in the 1970s. Mercy is hard in a place like this . . . It's February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town's men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow. In the early hours of the morning after Valentine's Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead's ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field--an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, one of the town's women decides to take matters into her own hands, setting the stage for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences. Valentine is a haunting exploration of the intersections of violence and race, class and region in a story that plumbs the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into beauty and hope. Told through the alternating points of view of indelible characters who burrow deep in the reader's heart, this fierce, unflinching, darkly funny, and surprisingly tender novel illuminates women's strength and vulnerability, and reminds us that it is the stories we tell ourselves that keep us alive.

Valentine

a156d9cf-34b6-4395-93b4-9da9a5846a75-1

Rosella Postorino

Leah Janeczko

Arizona

At the Wolf's Table is the internationally bestselling novel based on the untold true story of the women conscripted to be Hitler’s food tasters, from author Rosella Postorino. "They called it the Wolfsschanze, the Wolf’s Lair. 'Wolf' was his nickname. As hapless as Little Red Riding Hood, I had ended up in his belly. A legion of hunters was out looking for him, and to get him in their grips they would gladly slay me as well." Germany, 1943: Twenty-six-year-old Rosa Sauer’s parents are gone, and her husband Gregor is far away, fighting on the front lines of WWII. Impoverished and alone, she makes the fateful decision to leave war-torn Berlin to live with her in-laws in the countryside, thinking she’ll find refuge there. But one morning, the SS come to tell her she has been conscripted to be one of Hitler’s tasters: twice a day, she and nine other women go to his secret headquarters, the Wolf’s Lair, to eat his meals before he does. Forced to eat what might kill them, the tasters begin to divide into The Fanatics, those loyal to Hitler, and the women like Rosa who insist they aren’t Nazis, even as they risk their lives every day for Hitler’s. As secrets and resentments grow, this unlikely sisterhood reaches its own dramatic climax. What’s more, one of Rosa’s SS guards has become dangerously familiar, and the war is worsening outside. As the months pass, it becomes increasingly clear that Rosa and everyone she knows are on the wrong side of history.

At the Wolf's Table

fc6480eb-1db8-4696-96ab-f17d8a80797d-1

New Jersey

A Novel 

Button Man

821e8f28-be2c-4f44-aa89-a2fd13c62766-1

Sandra Brown

Alabama

A new page-turning historical thriller set in Prohibition-era Texas, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Sandra Brown​.

Blind Tiger

19a15ad4-b7f7-4a10-a345-d626a5441208-1

Kate Atkinson

Pennsylvania

The stunning companion to Kate Atkinson's #1 bestseller Life After Life, "one of the best novels I've read this century" (Gillian Flynn). "He had been reconciled to death during the war and then suddenly the war was over and there was a next day and a next day. Part of him never adjusted to having a future." Kate Atkinson's dazzling Life After Life explored the possibility of infinite chances and the power of choices, following Ursula Todd as she lived through the turbulent events of the last century over and over again. A GOD IN RUINS tells the dramatic story of the 20th Century through Ursula's beloved younger brother Teddy--would-be poet, heroic pilot, husband, father, and grandfather-as he navigates the perils and progress of a rapidly changing world. After all that Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is living in a future he never expected to have. An ingenious and moving exploration of one ordinary man's path through extraordinary times, A GOD IN RUINS proves once again that Kate Atkinson is one of the finest novelists of our age.

A God in Ruins

535275b3-e068-4e05-87fe-d6c7800ca139-1

#hardcover #fiction #ya #youngadult #historical #historicalfiction 

Washington

For fans of rich and complex historical novels like Girl with a Pearl Earring or Code Name Verity, Laura Malone Elliott delivers the stunning tale of real-life Renaissance woman Ginevra de' Benci, the inspiration for one of Leonardo da Vinci's earliest masterpieces. The young and beautiful daughter of a wealthy family, Ginevra longs to share her poetry and participate in the artistic ferment of Renaissance Florence but is trapped in an arranged marriage in a society dictated by men. The arrival of the charismatic Venetian ambassador, Bernardo Bembo, introduces Ginevra to a dazzling circle of patrons, artists, and philosophers. Bembo chooses Ginevra as his Platonic muse and commissions a portrait of her by a young Leonardo da Vinci. Posing for the brilliant painter inspires an intimate connection between them, one Ginevra only begins to understand. In a rich and vivid world of exquisite art with a dangerous underbelly of deadly political feuds, Ginevra faces many challenges to discover her voice and artistic companionship—and to find love.

Da Vinci's Tiger

9bbd7e05-eefe-4341-9fe9-ef8b3adec29c-1

L. M. Elliott

Maryland

Virginia

Viper Wine

Ohio

Sisters in Arms  

Massachusetts

Naomi Krupitsky

BOTM hardcover edition. Like new. Never read. 

Texas

The Instant New York Times bestseller A TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick A captivating debut novel about the tangled fates of two best friends and daughters of the Italian mafia, and a coming-of-age story of twentieth-century Brooklyn itself. Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate. Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends since birth, they live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community: the Family. Sunday dinners gather them each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love. But the disappearance of Antonia’s father drives a whisper-thin wedge between the girls as they grow into women, wives, mothers, and leaders. Their hearts expand in tandem with Red Hook and Brooklyn around them, as they push against the boundaries of society’s expectations and fight to preserve their complex but life-sustaining friendship. One fateful night their loyalty to each other and the Family will be tested. Only one of them can pull the trigger before it’s too late.

The Family

912a64ca-bbf8-4165-adf4-53f836021b06

Monica Hesse

California

A stunning novel of conviction, friendship, and betrayal from Monica Hesse, the Edgar Award-winning and bestselling author of Girl in the Blue Coat It's 1944, and World War II is raging across Europe and the Pacific. The war seemed far away from Margot in Iowa and Haruko in Colorado--until they were uprooted to dusty Texas, all because of the places their parents once called home: Germany and Japan. Haruko and Margot meet at the high school in Crystal City, a "family internment camp" for those accused of colluding with the enemy. The teens discover that they are polar opposites in so many ways, except for one that seems to override all the others: the camp is changing them, day by day and piece by piece. Haruko finds herself consumed by fear for her soldier brother and distrust of her father, who she knows is keeping something from her. And Margot is doing everything she can to keep her family whole as her mother's health deteriorates and her rational, patriotic father becomes a man who distrusts America and fraternizes with Nazis. With everything around them falling apart, Margot and Haruko find solace in their growing, secret friendship. But in a prison the government has deemed full of spies, can they trust anyone--even each other?

The War Outside

eb607634-085a-48af-8431-84982f21c27c-1

Anita Shreve

New York

Suffering memory loss due from time on a French battlefield during World War I, American Stella Bain, is taken in by a London surgeon and his wife in this new novel from the author of The Last Time They Met. 250,000 first printing.

Stella Bain

ec1cc785-5267-412a-be47-dbedf7f31043-1

#historical #historicalfiction #fiction #hardcover #histfic #ireland #gardencafe #librarian

Oklahoma

The second in Felicity Hayes-McCoy's Finfarran Peninsula series, and the sequel to The Library at the Edge of the World—a heartwarming story about secrets between four generations of Irish women, and the healing powers of books, love, and friendship. The Garden Café, next to Lissbeg library, is a place where plans are formed and secrets shared, and where, even in high tourist season, people are never too busy to stop for a sandwich and a cup of tea. But twenty-one-year-old Jazz—daughter of the town’s librarian Hanna Casey—has a secret she can’t share. Still recovering from a car accident, and reeling from her father’s disclosures about his long-time affair, she’s taken a job at The Old Forge guesthouse, and begun to develop feelings for a man who’s strictly off-limits. Meanwhile, involved in her own new affair with architect Brian Morton, Hanna is unaware of the turmoil in Jazz’s life—until her manipulative ex-husband, Malcom, reappears trying to mend his relationship with their daughter. Rebuffed at every turn, Malcolm must return to London, but his mother, Louisa, is on the case. Unbeknown to the rest of the family, she hatches a plan, finding an unlikely ally in Hanna’s mother, the opinionated Mary Casey. Watching Jazz unravel, Hanna begins to wonder if secrets which Malcolm has forced her to keep may have harmed their beloved daughter more than she’d realized. But then, the Casey women are no strangers to secrets, something Hanna realizes when she discovers a journal, long buried in land she inherited from her great-aunt Maggie. Ultimately, it’s the painful lessons of the past that offer a way to the future, but it will take the shared experiences of four generations of women to find a way forward for Hanna and her family.

Summer at the Garden Cafe

ed2f41bd-f65f-4ed2-bfd4-c7f03c01559e-1

Sue Monk Kidd

The #1 New York Times bestseller of hope, daring, and the quest for freedom taken on by two unforgettable American women, from the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees. “A remarkable novel that heightened my sense of what it meant to be a woman – slave or free . . a conversation changer.” – Oprah Winfrey, O, The Oprah Magazine “Powerful…furthers our essential understanding of what has happened among us as Americans – and why it still matters.” –The Washington Post Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world—and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved.

The Invention of Wings

2539dea0-18a2-49b8-bf80-a7ddbcbab6de-1

#hardcover #youngadult #middlegrade #ya #historicalfiction #fiction #mystery #historical #awardwinner #childrens

Oregon

CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book
Finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award
ILA Young Adults' Choices

"A provocative, sensitive, and oh-so-timely read." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Ambitious, thought-provoking, and very readable." --Booklist (starred review)

"Vaught brings history to life as she connects the past with the present, showing how acts of violence, betrayal, and courage both color and blend the histories of two families." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A mysterious note takes Dani Beans into the secrets of Ole Miss and its dark past in this compelling middle grade novel from the author of Footer Davis Probably Is Crazy.

"Sooner or later, we're all gonna be okay."

That's what Dani's Grandma Beans used to say. But that was before she got Alzheimer's. Lately, Dani isn't so sure Grandma Beans was right. In fact, she isn't sure of a lot of things, like why Mac Richardson suddenly doesn't want to be her friend, and why Grandma Beans and Avadelle Richardson haven't spoken in decades. Lately, Grandma Beans doesn't make a lot of sense. But when she tells Dani to find a secret key and envelope that she's hidden, Dani can't ignore her. So she investigates, with the help of her friend, Indri, and her not-friend, Mac. Their investigation takes them deep into the history of Oxford, Mississippi, and the riots surrounding the desegregation of Ole Miss. The deeper they dig, the more secrets they uncover. Were Grandma Beans and Avadelle at Ole Miss the night of the Meredith Riot? And why would they keep it a secret?

The more Dani learns about her grandma's past, the more she learns about herself and her own friendships--and it's not all good news. History and present day collide in this mystery that explores how echoes of the past can have profound consequences.

Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry

c2d7f96a-6a77-472e-9a06-0f931491c11e-1

#fiction #historical #historicalfiction #hardcover #histfic 

A Factory of Cunning

c5032f65-da78-4e82-b593-b423bf7ab73f-1

#fiction #historical #historicalfiction #hardcover #histfic #englishhistory #robinmaxwell

Browse by categories

Save this search

Jessie Burton

The House of Fortune

Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Woman of Light

Carol Birch

Orphans of the Carnival

Elizabeth Wetmore

Valentine

Rosella Postorino; Leah Janeczko

At the Wolf's Table

Andrew Gross

Button Man

Sandra Brown

Blind Tiger

Kate Atkinson

A God in Ruins

L. M. Elliott

Da Vinci's Tiger

L. M. Elliott

Da Vinci's Tiger

Hermione Eyre

Viper Wine

Kaia Alderson

Sisters in Arms

L. M. Elliott

Da Vinci's Tiger

Naomi Krupitsky

The Family

Monica Hesse

The War Outside

Anita Shreve

Stella Bain

Naomi Krupitsky

The Family

Felicity Hayes-McCoy

Summer at the Garden Cafe

Monica Hesse

The War Outside

Sue Monk Kidd

The Invention of Wings

Susan Vaught

Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry

Philippa Stockley

A Factory of Cunning

Maxwell, Robin

To the tower born

Lauren Fox

Send for Me