Category Archives: Historical Fiction

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

29 Monday Jun 2015

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9780316176538_p0_v3_s114x166 Kate Atkinson’s new book A God in Ruins is a companion piece to her 2013 novel Life After Life. Both books follow the Todd family in England before, during, and after World War II, focusing in particular on siblings Ursula and Teddy. In each story, Atkinson plays with the idea of time, and writes beautifully and powerfully about war. Both books are compelling in different ways; I recommend reading Life After Life first.

“Atkinson isn’t just telling a story: she’s deconstructing, taking apart the notion of how we believe stories are told. Using narrative tricks that range from the subtlest sleight of hand to direct address, she makes us feel the power of storytelling not as an intellectual conceit, but as a punch in the gut.”―Publishers Weekly
“A sprawling, unapologetically ambitious saga that tells the story of postwar Britain through the microcosm of a single family, and you remember what a big, old-school novel can do.”―Tom Perotta, New York Times Book Review

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Transatlantic by Colum McCann

01 Monday Jun 2015

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9780812981926_p0_v2_s114x166McCann, the author of Let the Great World Spin, has created a remarkable novel of multiple generations of fictional female characters, and has interwoven their lives with those of real historical figures in both Ireland and the United States. With the characters Lily Duggan, an Irish maid, her granddaughter, Hannah Carson, Arthur Brown, the aviator, Frederick Douglass, the former slave and abolitionist, and George Mitchell, former U.S. senator who mediated the ceasefire in Northern Ireland, the author spans continents and leaps centuries and links the New World with the Old.

Read this book once for the story line and then read it again to fully understand and follow the threads of family and history.

“One of the greatest pleasures of TransAtlantic is how provisional it makes history feel, how intimate, and intensely real. . . . Here is the uncanny thing McCann finds again and again about the miraculous: that it is inseparable from the everyday.”—The Boston Globe

 “What distinguishes TransAtlantic from [Colum] McCann’s earlier work isn’t the stunning language or the psychological acuity or the humor and imagination on display—all of that has been there before. It’s the sheer ambition, the audacity to imagine within the same novel the experience of Frederick Douglass in 1845 . . . then the first nonstop trans-Atlantic flight in 1919 . . . then to leap into the near-present and embody the former senator George Mitchell, . . . knitting through and around them the stories of four generations of women.”—The New York Times Magazine

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Euphoria by Lily King

04 Monday May 2015

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I can’t wait to post this book on the blog and share it with everyone who is looking for a gripping page turner!  My only complaint is that it ended too soon…only 261 pages.

Masterful…Euphoria begins so deep in the action that the reader is captured on Page 1… a thrilling and beautifully composed novel…A great novelist is like an anthropologist, examining what humans do by habit and custom. King excels in creating vignettes from Nell’s fieldwork as well as from the bitter conversation of the three love-torn collaborators, making the familiar strange and the strange acceptable. This is a riveting and provocative novel, absolutely first-rate.”—Seattle Times

“Atmospheric and sensual, with startling images throughout, Euphoria is an intellectually stimulating tour de force.”—NPR.com

“Set between the First and Second World Wars, the story is loosely based on events in the life of Margaret Mead. There are fascinating looks into other cultures and how they are studied, and the sacrifices and dangers that go along with it. This is a powerful story, at once gritty, sensuous, and captivating.”—Booklist

“Atmospheric…A small gem, disturbing and haunting.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize

Winner of the 2014 New England Book Award for Fiction

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The Invisible Bridge: a novel by Julie Orringer

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

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Historical fiction at its best.   Three brothers you won’t forget.  A love story so deep that even the one you have known seems somehow less.  I was ready to book a trip to Budapest after reading only half the book only to realize that this mesmerizing Budapest, alas, is never to be again.  The Hungarian Jewish WWII experience was so different than those of other countries.  Be thunderstruck!

“To bring an entire lost world—its sights, its smells, its heartaches, raptures and terrors—to vivid life between the covers of a novel is an accomplishment; to invest that world, and everyone who inhabits it, with a soul, as Julie Orringer does in The Invisible Bridge, takes something more like genius.” —Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

“The word ‘epic’ seems inadequate to describe Julie Orringer’s phenomenal first novel, The Invisible Bridge. You don’t so much read it as live it. . . . Profoundly moving. . . . This is one that cries for you to linger over it, page by enthralling page.” —Financial Times

“Orringer avoids pathos and has a gift for re-creating distant times and places: a Paris suffused with the scent of paprikas and the sounds of American jazz, the camraderies and cruelties of the work camps. The ticking clock of history keeps it urgent and moving forward, and the result is, against all odds, a Holocaust page-turner.” —New York magazine

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Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

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Heat and Dust was recently mentioned in a Boston Globe interview with Ha Jin, author of Waiting, which won the National Book Award in 1999 and his most recent novel, A Map of Betrayal.  Jin who teaches a course at Brandeis entitled “The Literature of the Migrant” describes Heat and Dust as “an exquisite novel, technically perfect.”  That was a challenge!  In less than two hundred pages, Jhabvala has created a penetrating and compassionate love story set in India in the 1920’s that leaves the reader wondering about the outcome.

“A superb book. A complex story line, handled with dazzling assurance … moving and profound. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has not only written a love story, she has also exposed the soul and nerve ends of a fascinating and compelling country. This is a book of cool, controlled brilliance. It is a jewel to be treasured” — The Times

“A writer of genius … a writer of world class — a master storyteller’ — Sunday Times

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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

06 Friday Mar 2015

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A great book to read during this long, cold winter. Set in the early 1800s, the story follows two magicians and their quest to bring magic back to England. With its many supporting characters and witty tone, the book has been compared to Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Though not a quick read, this one is worth the time. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was also recently made into a TV series that will air on BBC America later this year.

“A smashing success…History and fantasy form a beautiful partnership in this detailed, authentic, and heartfelt novel.”—Booklist (starred review)
“An instant classic, one of the finest fantasies ever written.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“What kind of magic can make an 800-page novel seem too short? Whatever it is, debut author Susanna Clarke is possessed by it.”
—USA Today

The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout

13 Friday Feb 2015

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The Homesman was originally published in 1988 but has recently been released as a paperback in conjunction with a major motion picture starring Tommy Lee Jones and Hilary Swank. It’s always fun to read the book first and then see the movie! The main characters, George Briggs, a low-life claim jumper, and Mary Bee Cuddy, an indomitable and resourceful spinster, are forced into some sort of functioning relationship as they trek back to the East from the Midwest during the 1850’s, battling ice storms, Indian attacks, famine and loneliness.  The book highlights the plight of American frontier women and the hardships that they endured.  After reading this book, the reader will appreciate the comforts of 21st century living.

“I tell friends what The Homesman is about and their eyes open wide and they can’t wait to read it. And that’s just the plot. Swarthout puts you there, in time and place. I love the way he writes.” (Elmore Leonard)
“No reader should even attempt to guess what happens. Surprise piles upon surprise… Glendon Swarthout has honed writing excellence to a nearly unsurpassable level… A powerful novel… A classic of vivid realism and gripping storytelling.” (Associated Press)

“Totally involving from its very first words… a dangerous journey into the soul, an exploration of the relationships of men and women to each other, to their environments and—ultimately most devastatingly—to themselves.” (Los Angeles Times Book Review)

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The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

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The author of this novel offers a poignant but marvelous glimpse into the life of Marina Buriakov, a former docent at the Hermitage Art Museum in Leningrad during World War II, whose mind is now slipping into the shadows of Alzheimer’s.

“Dean writes with passion and compelling drama about a grotesque chapter of World War II.” (People)

“Elegant and poetic, the rare kind of book that you want to keep but you have to share.” (Isabel Allende, New York Times bestselling author of Zorro)

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The Orphan Train by Christine Baker Kline

10 Wednesday Sep 2014

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A poignant and heartbreaking tale of two orphaned or foster children separated in time by several generations but who share common experiences. They have both been left at a young age to fend for themselves in a grim adult world.  The lives of Vivian, a ten year old Irish immigrant girl placed on an orphan train from New York City to Minnesota in the 1930’s and of Molly, a present day Goth teenager from Maine who is maxing out of the foster care system, intersect as they both become strong and resilient women.

The historical aspect of the novel is particularly compelling. Between 1854 and 1929, the real orphan trains relocated more than 200,000 orphaned, abandoned or homeless children from large East Coast cities to foster homes in the Midwest where many of the children lived lives of indentured servitude.

In conjunction with reading the book, The Orphan Train, the reader might also be interested in viewing the PBS dvd entitled The Orphan Trains, introduced by David McCullough.

“A gem.” (Huffington Post)

“Absorbing…a heartfelt page-turner about two women finding a sense of home…Kline lets us live the characters’ experiences vividly through their skin…The growth from instinct to conscious understanding to partnership between the two is the foundation for a moving tale.” (Publishers Weekly)

“Kline draws a dramatic, emotional story from a neglected corner of American history.” (Kirkus Reviews)

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Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

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Many of us have been exposed to slave narratives from the Civil War era.  How about this one set during Revolutionary days?  Aminata Diallo is 6 years old when the traders take her from somewhere in Sierra Leone to the south in America. Eventually she finds her way to New York, is befriended and befriends the British. After the War of Independence, she is sent by the British to New Zealand and finally to the UK where she speaks for the Abolitionists.  All my instincts wanted to shout to her not to return to her Africa – her life time dream.   Not to be missed, this author gorgeously celebrates the resilience of one profound human being in the midst of a tumultuous and terribly unkind time in history.

“I found myself surprised on occasion to catch sight of Mr. Hill’s name on the cover…. He had me believing that this tale came not from the imagination and research of a 21st-century male author, but from the experience of an 18th-century African woman.” (Kim Lundstrom – Real Change)

“An inspirational novel of imaginative excellence and captivating power…. Every step of the way, Lawrence Hill offers readers a vivid portrayal of the emotional landscape that brings Aminata’s tale to life. I highly recommend reading this poignant book.” (Charles Shea LeMone – Roanoke Times)

“Astonishing in scope, humanity and beauty, this is one of those very rare novels in which the deep joy of reading transcends its time and place. Like ?To Kill a Mockingbird?, ?Someone Knows My Name? lets readers experience a life, one footstep at a time, beside an unforgettable protagonist.” (Eileen Charbonneau – Historical Novels Review)

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