Hi, historical fiction fans!
Today is a good day for reading, but what day isn’t really? I’ve been doing a lot of audiobook crocheting/knitting recently as I’ve finished up a baby blanket for my sister and various other projects. I crochet a lot like I read, which is to say I’m always juggling multiple projects and switching back and forth between them as the mood strikes. However and whatever you like to read, I hope this week is bringing you lots of good books and reading time. And just in case it’s not, I have a few recommendations I think you’ll enjoy.
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Bookish Goods
Literary Locations Signpost Painting from Fox and Wild
How lovely is this watercolor print featuring directions to your favorite literary locations like Narnia and Middle Earth? $25
New Releases
The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin (February 27, 2024)
After being separated from her mother, a young enslaved girl meets a society of Black women working as spies to undermine the Confederates. Doing so helps her discover the strength to fight for herself and for freedom.
No Better Time by Sheila Williams (February 27, 2024)
In this novel about the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, the only Black division of the Women’s Army Corps during WWII, a librarian joins the WAC hoping to help out with the war effort and find adventure overseas. What she and the other women find is both terrible and wonderful, as they face extreme discrimination but also untold freedoms abroad.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
I love reading translated works of fiction. They open up a world of ideas beyond our own limited cultural context. Here are two that are on my TBR right now, and I think all you historical fiction fans might find interesting, too.
You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer
Described as a “colonial revenge story,” You Dreamed of Empires reimagines the conquistadors’ arrival in Tenochtitlan. What if Cortés and his men hadn’t won and conquered Mexico? What if the Aztec Empire hadn’t fallen? What if history as we know it took a different turn?
A Woman of Pleasure by Kiyoko Murata, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Based on the lives of sex workers in turn of the 20th century Meiji-era Japan, Murata paints a vivid portrait of the good and bad of life in Japan’s red-light district in Kumamoto. Ichi Aoi is only 15 when she’s sold to a brothel, eventually becoming the protégée of one of the highest-ranking courtesans. It’s here and from her mentor that she begins to understand the fundamental link between sex, power, and money.
That’s it for now, folks! Stay subscribed for more stories of yesteryear.
If you want to talk books, historical or otherwise, you can find me @rachelsbrittain on various social media platforms.
Right now, I’m reading Mister Magic by Kiersten White. What about you?