Category: Past Tense

When Ady meets Lenore, a free Black woman, at the Mockingbird Inn, she’s invited to become one of The Daughters, a group of spies working to undermine the Confederacy. If they can help win the war and the right to freedom, Ady might be able to find the beloved mother she was separated from and build a life the two of them have always dreamed of.

Yorick would’ve died as an apprentice librarian for the White Star Line if a superior hadn’t taken his place on the Titanic at the last minute. Soon, he’s invited to join a secret group of survivors, all ticket holders who bested fate by never boarding the doomed ship. As they grapple with the near miss and complicated feelings for each other, the group are brought together by books, only to be torn apart by the start of the First World War.

One of my absolute favorite historical fiction authors, June Hur, has a new YA novel set in 16th century Korea coming out this year, and I couldn’t be more excited. Hur has pitched the book as a K-Drama-esque story about a girl trying to save her kidnapped sister from a tyrannical king and a prince determined to end his half-brother’s reign of terror.

I adored Pip William’s book about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Dictionary of Lost Words, so I was so excited to find out she was writing another historical fiction book set in England during WWI, this time following the bookbinders of Oxford. It lived up to my expectations and then some.

I love a good dual-time-line historical fiction novel with a mystery, and while I clued into what was going on in this one pretty quickly, it didn’t make the journey any less enjoyable. When the daughters of a famous—and wealthy—Black family are named as the heirs for Kitty Karr, a late White movie star who was always close with the family, rumors swirl. Do they really deserve to have even more money? And why would Kitty leave her money to them in the first place?

Isabel Cañas writes wonderful supernatural historical gothic fiction, and Vampires of El Norte lives up to its predecessor, The Hacienda. When childhood sweethearts are reunited after years apart, violence—and vampires—threaten to ruin their second chance at love.

This historical account of what an infamous 18th century Frenchman’s life might have looked like, from his inauspicious birth to the accident that Blakemore imagines gave him his famously insatiable appetite. It’s a fascinating read based on true events.

Based on the diaries of acclaimed 18th-century midwife Martha Ballard, The Frozen River tells the story of terrible crimes hidden within a small community. When Martha identifies the body of a man frozen in the river as that of a well-respected gentleman recently involved in an alleged rape, the physician rules it an accident. Martha’s years of experience tell her something different. But with the doctor’s verdict settled, she’ll have to take matters into her own hands as she uncovers even more shocking truths about her community, implicating even the people she holds most dear.

In the snowy mountains near an isolated hot spring, a wealthy man and a geisha fall in love. There is no way their relationship can last, but the doomed romance set against the snowy mountains of Western Japan is entrancing nonetheless.

When a young woman is found frozen in the snow of Manchuria in 1908, rumors of a fox spirit luring her to an icy death swirl. A detective long interested in foxes searches for the truth about her identity and the events that led to her death, all while a family cursed to lose their sons before the age of 24 welcome a young woman into their house—but is she really who she claims to be?

A Romeo and Juliet retelling centering Romeo’s first spurned love, Rosaline? You absolutely have my attention. After Romeo’s attention wanders, Rosaline worries that her younger cousin’s very life may be on the line for this love affair. But can she save her in time, or will this age-old tragedy continue on as always?

Ellen Lark, a gifted young woman and former student of Alexander Graham Bell, is torn when she discovers the mentor she has long revered betrayed her and the rest of the Deaf community in his quest to invent the telephone. Speaking up could threaten her future, but staying silent was never an option.

Following the 6888th Central Postal Battalion, the only all-Black division of the Women’s Army Corps in World War II, Women of the Post tells the story of three women who worked tirelessly to keep communication lines open, even as they struggled with the realities of war themselves.

Generations of women in a Métis family search for belonging in this interwoven tale of healing and family heritage. Told from a chorus of voices, including the descendants of the bison who once freely roamed the land, A Grandmother Beings the Story is a story of family unlike any you’ve read before.

A community of Black and Jewish residents is rocked when a body is uncovered from a well in their part of town. They know exactly who it is and what happened, but the secrets the people of Chicken Hill have been keeping uncover deeper truths about the reality of life on the margins and the lengths communities will go to in order to protect one another.

This book is perfect for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A writer is commissioned to write a history of the food of England during the Great Depression. Considering the country’s reputation for bland food, Stella isn’t optimistic about the book’s prospects. But when her car breaks down and she’s rescued by an antique dealer, her story goes in surprising new directions.

A girl raised by her science teacher father, who tells her stories of their Dakota ancestors, is sent to live with a foster family when her father fails to return from the woods one day. Years later, after years of living with her white husband on his farm, she returns to her childhood home and searches for answers about what it means to be descended from a long line of powerful women who protected their families and a cache of precious seeds through years of hardship and loss.

In the 1600s Algonquin territories, a gifted healer was pressured to marry a French settler to help protect her people. While the daughter they have would’ve been revered for her Two-Spirit nature by the Deer Clan, she’s considered unnatural and dangerous by the French—including her father. Caught between worlds and beliefs, with the powerful dictating their fates, how will these women learn to survive?

Five generations of Métis women, connected by love and loss, search for answers in themselves and each other as they try to reconnect and move on. It’s a beautiful tale of womanhood, family, intergenerational trauma, and bison.

In England during the grips of the Great Depression, an author worried about her future is commissioned to write a history of food in Great Britain. Unfortunately, Britain isn’t exactly known for its food. Stella is determined to succeed anyway, and when her car breaks down, an antiques dealer shows her a side of England she never knew before, along with exactly the sorts of stories and food she needs to write a bestselling book.

Bartolomeo Scappi, a legendary Renaissance chef who served several popes and wrote one of the best-selling cookbooks of all time, warns his nephew that the contents of two strongboxes could put all their lives in danger if he doesn’t burn them. But Giovanni wants to learn his uncle’s secrets, and, after deciphering the journals he finds inside, he discovers a life story full of food, deception, and illicit love—not to mention recipes certain people would do anything to get in their possessions.

Winnie and Helen are best friends who have always kept each other’s secrets. But now, Helen believes she is dying and wants the truth to be known. Helen’s secrets aren’t only her own, though, and Winnie determines that if the truth is going to come out, she’ll be the one to tell it—including the parts even Helen herself doesn’t know.

Exploring a part of American history that is often overlooked, The Davenports depicts the experiences of a wealthy Black family in the early 20th century United States. It’s inspired by true events and has a very Bridgerton feel that historical romance fans—and historical fiction fans in general—will love.

A mystery at a Nashville zoo brings together an odd cast of characters, from a young Cherokee horse diver on loan from a Wild West show to a haunted WWI veteran-slash-zookeeper. Can they figure out what a series of disasters has to do with the zoo’s past before their entire show falls apart?

A fake engagement based on a real engagement between two people with secret agendas of their own in late 19th century England? Yes, please! When a young woman with dreams of taking an “ambulance class” for first responders is told the man in charge of her must sign off on the class, she claims the handsome Chinese nobleman she just met is her fiancé. Kai has reasons of his own to agree to this arrangement, not least of which is the fact that he and Naomi really were betrothed as children.

A new earl fending off claims to his positions from all sides finds a surprising ally in one of his enemies, a smuggler who also happens to have the secretarial skills and scheming brain he needs to succeed. Despite their growing feelings and romantic entanglement, can a relationship really work between two men whose motives—and allegiances—are at odds?

A young woman desperate for security after her father was executed in the Mexican War of Independence ignores the rumors swirling around a wealthy man courting her and agrees to marry him. But when she arrives at Hacienda San Isidro, the darkness that resides there is impossible to ignore. And the local priest she’s impossibly attracted to may be the only one able to help her ride the house of its literal and metaphorical ghosts.

Three women, one haunted by her experiences at a rubber plantation in the 1980s, one involved in a dangerous scheme in the 2000s, and one who disappears in 2011 without a trace: what do their stories have to do with one another and, more importantly, with the possession of bodies and land?