Hi, historical fiction fans,
How y’all doing? Finding ways to stay cool and hydrated in all this heat? I sure hope so. I’ve got another great week of historical fiction reads for you here, including two intriguing new releases and a collection of my favorite historical fiction reads of the year. Hopefully you can find some great new reads and some distraction from the summer heat.
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Bookish Goods
Book Locket from Kristin Grace Jewelry
Check out this fun book locket that lets you wear a book around your neck. $28.
New Releases
The Lions’ Den by Iris Mwanza (June 25, 2024)
In the early ’90s in Zambia, a rookie lawyer fights for a young queer dancer who is beaten and detained before disappearing from the system. Along with a former freedom fighter and the head of her law firm and ready for one last fight as his own battle against AIDS takes its toll, Grace will have to fight a corrupt system and the ugliness at the very core of President Kaunda’s administration to seek justice for her client.
Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams (June 25, 2024)
Husbands & Lovers follows two women connected by a family heirloom in the 1950s and 2020s. With her son in desperate need of a kidney donor after consuming a poisonous mushroom at summer camp, Mallory Dunne is forced to confront two family secrets that have haunted her: her mother’s adoption from an infamous orphanage in the 1950s and her own love affair with a now-famous singer a decade prior.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
Somehow we’ve reached the halfway point of 2024, so it’s high time to talk favorite books. I am certain there are many other incredible historical fiction titles from the year, but these three are my favorites.
You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer
In this surreal reimagining of the Spanish conquistadors’ first foray into the Aztec stronghold of Tenochtitlan, nothing goes quite as it seems—or quite as history tells it. Cortés meets Moctezuma, but it’s the complicated intersecting decisions leading up to that moment that changed history forever. It’s history and historical fiction as you’ve never seen it before.
The Woman with No Name by Audrey Blake
Based on the life story of an incredible woman working against the Nazis in WWII, The Woman With No Name follows Yvonne Rudellat, a French woman living in England during the Second World War. Her daughters and her neighbors are all doing their part, but despite Yvonne’s best attempts, no one seems to think a middle-aged woman can be of any help. Until she is recruited by the SOE to become the first female sabotage agent in France.
Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
Although this is a follow-up and companion to Tommy Orange’s bestselling novel There There, it can be read—and thoroughly enjoyed—on its own. The story follows generations of a Cheyenne family and explores the complicated intergenerational legacy of trauma, from the Sand Creek Massacre and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School to a modern-day shooting that nearly tore a family apart.
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 most social media, including Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy.
Right now I’m reading Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy. What about you?