Collection: Historical Fiction

A billionaire Holocaust survivor hires a writer to uncover the truth of Salvador Allende's death, and they must confront their own dark histories to find a path forward--for themselves and for our ravaged planet.

An expansive, engrossing mystery for fans of Gabriel García Márquez, Margaret Atwood, and Bill McKibben, from the acclaimed author of Death and the Maiden.

Ariel needed money, and Joseph Hortha had it. Bound by gratitude toward the late Chilean president and a persistent need to know whether murder or suicide ended his life during the 1973 coup, the two men embark on an investigation that will take them from Washington DC and New York, to Santiago and Valparaíso, and finally to London. They encounter an unforgettable cast of characters: a wedding photographer who can predict a couple's future; a policeman in pursuit of the serial killer targeting refugees; a revolutionary caught trying to assassinate a dictator; and, above all, the complex women who support them along the way, for their own obscure reasons.
Before Ariel and Joseph can resolve a quest full of dangers and enigmas, they must help each other come to terms with guilt and trauma from personal catastrophes hidden deep in the past. What begins as an intriguing literary caper unfolds into a propulsive, philosophical saga about love, family, machismo, fascism, and exile that asks what we owe the world, one another, and ourselves. By boldly mixing fiction and reality, imagination and history, The Suicide Museum explores the limits of the novelistic genre, expanding it in an unsuspected and exceptional way.

From award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes comes a powerful novel set fifteen years after the 9/11 attacks in a classroom of students who cannot remember the event but live through the aftermath of its cultural shift.
When her fifth-grade teacher hints that a series of lessons about home and community will culminate with one big answer about two tall towers once visible outside their classroom window, Dèja can't help but feel confused. She sets off on a journey of discovery, with new friends Ben and Sabeen by her side. But just as she gets closer to answering big questions about who she is, what America means, and how communities can grow (and heal), she uncovers new questions, too. Like, why does Pop get so angry when she brings up anything about the towers?

Award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes tells a powerful story about young people who weren't alive to witness this defining moment in history, but begin to realize how much it colors their every day.

Explore the past 150 years through the eyes of Indigenous creators in this groundbreaking graphic novel anthology. Beautifully illustrated, these stories are an emotional and enlightening journey through Indigenous wonderworks, psychic battles, and time travel. See how Indigenous peoples have survived a post-apocalyptic world since Contact.

Each story includes a timeline of related historical events and a personal note from the author. Find cited sources and a select bibliography for further reading in the back of the book. The accompanying teacher guide includes curriculum charts and 12 lesson plans to help educators use the book with their students.

This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts' New Chapter initiative. With this $35M initiative, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.

Rosamunde Pilcher's The Shell Seekers is "a huge warm saga...A deeply satisfying story written with love and confidence" (Maeve Binchy in The New York Times Book Review).

The Shell Seekers was adapted twice to film (1989 and 2006).

An instant bestseller when it was first published, The Shell Seekers is an enduring classic which has touched the hearts of millions of readers worldwide. A novel of connection, it is the story of one family--mothers and daughters, husbands and lovers--and of the passions and heartbreak that have held them together for three generations. This magical novel--the kind of reading experience that comes along only once in a long while--is the perfect read, whether you are returning to it again, or opening the cover for the first time.

At the end of a long and useful life, Penelope Keeling's prized possession is The Shell Seekers, painted by her father, and symbolizing her unconventional life, from bohemian childhood to wartime romance. When her grown children learn their grandfather's work is now worth a fortune, each has an idea as to what Penelope should do. But as she recalls the passions, tragedies, and secrets of her life, she knows there is only one answer...and it lies in her heart.

"A delicate weaving of myth and history, The Witch and the Tsar breathes new life into stories you think you know."-Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author of For the Wolf

In this stunning debut novel, the maligned and immortal witch of legend known as Baba Yaga will risk all to save her country and her people from Tsar Ivan the Terrible--and the dangerous gods who seek to drive the twisted hearts of men.

As a half-goddess possessing magic, Yaga is used to living on her own, her prior entanglements with mortals having led to heartbreak. She mostly keeps to her hut in the woods, where those in need of healing seek her out, even as they spread rumors about her supposed cruelty and wicked spells. But when her old friend Anastasia--now the wife of the tsar, and suffering from a mysterious illness--arrives in her forest desperate for her protection, Yaga realizes the fate of all of Russia is tied to Anastasia's. Yaga must step out of the shadows to protect the land she loves.

As she travels to Moscow, Yaga witnesses a sixteenth century Russia on the brink of chaos. Tsar Ivan--soon to become Ivan the Terrible--grows more volatile and tyrannical by the day, and Yaga believes the tsaritsa is being poisoned by an unknown enemy. But what Yaga cannot know is that Ivan is being manipulated by powers far older and more fearsome than anyone can imagine.

Olesya Salnikova Gilmore weaves a rich tapestry of mythology and Russian history, reclaiming and reinventing the infamous Baba Yaga, and bringing to life a vibrant and tumultuous Russia, where old gods and new tyrants vie for power. This fierce and compelling novel draws from the timeless lore to create a heroine for the modern day, fighting to save her country and those she loves from oppression while also finding her true purpose as a goddess, a witch, and a woman.

Anna Mary brings books to children and adults in Appalachia during the Great Depression.

There were no libraries in the backwoods of Kentucky in the 1930s. Librarians there and throughout the South delivered books to families by horseback and mule, sleeping outdoors or sheltering in barns when they could, going from farm to farm in remote areas. In this story, a woman named Anna Mary stands in for all the real-life horseback librarians who helped keep the love of books alive in Appalachia during the Great Depression.

"With compelling characters and a heart-pounding plot, Jamila Minnicks pulled me into pages of history I'd never turned before."―Barbara Kingsolver, New York Times bestselling author of Demon Copperhead

Winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, an enchanting and thought-provoking debut novel about a Black woman doing whatever it takes to protect all she loves on Alabama soil during the Civil Rights Movement.

It's 1957, and after leaving the only home she has ever known, Alice Young steps off the bus into all-Black New Jessup, where residents have largely rejected integration as the means for Black social advancement. Instead, they seek to maintain, and fortify, the community they cherish on their "side of the woods." In this place, Alice falls in love with Raymond Campbell, whose clandestine organizing activities challenge New Jessup's longstanding status quo and could lead to the young couple's expulsion--or worse--from the home they both hold dear. As they marry and raise children together, Alice must find a way to balance her undying support for his underground work with her desire to protect New Jessup from the rising pressure of upheaval from inside, and outside, their side of town.

Based on the history of the many Black towns and settlements established across the country, Jamila Minnicks's heartfelt and riveting debut is both a celebration of Black joy and a timely examination of the opposing viewpoints that attended desegregation in America.

Longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2023 First Novel Prize

A "delicious" (Rebecca Makkai) and "deeply compelling" (Lauren Groff) debut novel set at a 1950s Reno "divorce ranch," about the complex friendship between two women who dare to imagine a different future

Lois Saunders thought that marrying the right man would finally cure her loneliness. But as picture-perfect as her husband is, she is suffocating in their loveless marriage. In 1951, though, unhappiness is hardly grounds for divorce--except in Reno, Nevada.

At the Golden Yarrow, the most respectable of Reno's famous "divorce ranches," Lois finds herself living with half a dozen other would-be divorcees, all in Reno for the six weeks' residency that is the state's only divorce requirement. They spend their days riding horses and their nights flirting with cowboys, and it's as wild and fun as Lake Forest, Illinois, is prim and stifling. But it isn't until Greer Lang arrives that Lois's world truly cracks open. Gorgeous, beguiling, and completely indifferent to societal convention, Greer is unlike anyone Lois has ever met--and she sees something in Lois that no one else ever has. Under her influence, Lois begins to push against the limits that have always restrained her. How far will she go to forge her independence, on her own terms?

Set in the glamorous, dizzying world of 1950s Reno, where housewives and movie stars rubbed shoulders at gin-soaked casinos, The Divorcees is a riveting page-turner and a dazzling exploration of female friendship, desire, and freedom.

Author Jacob Sager Weinstein and New York Times bestselling illustrator Eliza Wheeler deliver a stunning picture book about a young Jewish girl fleeing Nazi occupation with her parents. Drawing on the childhood experiences of the author's mother, this story of family, immigration, and identity shows the boundless power of love.

Vienna, Austria, is the only home Rosa knows. While her parents work at their store, she plays with her grandmother, reads her favorite books, and climbs trees. But when the Nazis arrive in 1938, everything changes.

Rosa's family is Jewish, and the Nazis' new laws make it dangerous for Jews to live in Vienna. Rosa's parents can no longer run their store. Soon, some Jews decide to leave the country, and Rosa wants to go, too. But where would they go? And what would Rosa be able to bring with her?

For fans of Bridgerton comes a Regency-era romance graphic novel about the unexpected passion that blooms from a marriage of convenience.

The whole town is whispering about how Catherine Benson lost her virtue, though they can never agree on the details. Was it in the public garden? Or a moving carriage?

Only a truly desperate man would want her now--and that's exactly what Andrew Davener is. His family's estate is in disrepair, but Catherine's sizeable dowry could set it to rights.

After the two wed, Catherine finds herself inexplicably drawn to Andrew. But could falling in love with her husband tear her marriage apart? In this richly detailed Regency romance, duty and passion collide in a slow-burn tale of intertwined fates.

Inspire a love of nature in young readers with this gorgeous, simple guide--and learn how, through millennia of transformations, life and land have always found a way to begin anew, for nature-loving fans of Kate Messner's Over and Under series.

Do you know a little bit of land? It could be smaller than you expect. But its importance is bigger than you know. From the prehistoric past to the dramatic environmental change of right here and now, the land has countless stories to tell. You, too, are a part of the land. Listen, and you will understand what it needs to stay in balance.

A breathtaking exploration of the connections between life and land central to the past, present, and future of our planet, Little Land invites young readers to think about ways in which they engage with the environment in their own lives.

An enthralling novel about the corruption of power and the power of corruption from one of our greatest writers, the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of THE INNOCENTS (Extraordinary"--Wall Street Journal)

"MASTERPIECE" --Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)

"CEASELESSLY ENTERTAINING" --Kirkus (Starred Review)

"ONE OF OUR BEST WRITERS" --Booklist (Starred Review)

In an isolated outport on Newfoundland's northern coastline, Abe Strapp is about to marry the daughter of a rival merchant to cement his hold on the shore when the Widow Caines arrives to throw the wedding and Abe's plans into chaos.

That ruthless act of sabotage is the opening salvo in a battle between the man and woman who own Mockbeggar's largest mercantile firms, each fighting for the scarce resources of the north Atlantic fishery, each seeking a measure of revenge on the person they despise most in the world. As their unshakeable animosity spirals further each year into vendettas and violence, the community is increasingly divided and even the innocents in Mockbeggar find themselves forced to take sides, with devastating consequences.

Through merciless seasons of uncertainty and want, through predatory storms and pandemics and marauding privateers, it is the human heart that reveals itself to be the most formidable and unpredictable adversary for each person drawn, inevitably and helplessly, into that endless feud.

Compulsively readable and uncompromising, The Adversary is a masterful evocation of a lost time, and a shadowed mirror to our modern politics of grievance and retribution.

In his signature style of grand storytelling, James A. Michener transports us back thousands of years to the Holy Land. Through the discoveries of modern archaeologists excavating the site of Tell Makor, Michener vividly re-creates life in an ancient city and traces the profound history of the Jewish people--from the persecution of the early Hebrews, the rise of Christianity, and the Crusades to the founding of Israel and the modern conflict in the Middle East. An epic tale of love, strength, and faith, The Source is a richly written saga that encompasses the history of Western civilization and the great religious and cultural ideas that have shaped our world.

Praise for The Source

"Fascinating . . . stunning . . . [a] wonderful rampage through history . . . Biblical history, as seen through the eyes of a professor who is puzzled, appalled, delighted, enriched and impoverished by the spectacle of a land where all men are archeologists."--The New York Times

"A sweeping [novel] filled with excitement--pagan ritual, the clash of armies, ancient and modern: the evolving drama of man's faith."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Magnificent . . . a superlative piece of writing both in scope and technique . . . one of the great books of this generation."--San Francisco Call Bulletin

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals of Excellence

A harrowing and redemptive immigrant story for readers of Pachinko

A Chinese railroad worker and his young daughter--sold into servitude--in 19th century California search for family, fulfillment, and belonging in a violent new land

"Heaven and earth do not pick and choose.
They see everything as straw dogs."

A sweeping historical novel of the American West from the little-seen perspective of those who helped to build it, Straw Dogs of the Universe traces the story of one Chinese father and his young daughter, desperate to find him against all odds.

After her village is devastated by famine, 10-year-old Sixiang is sold to a human trafficker for a bag of rice and six silver coins. Her mother is reluctant to let her go, but the promise of a better life for her beloved daughter ultimately sways her. Arriving in America with the profits from her sale and a single photograph of Guifeng, her absent father, Sixiang journeys across an unfamiliar American landscape in the hopes of reuniting her family.

As she makes her way through an unforgiving new world, her father, a railroad worker in California, finds his attempts to build a life for himself both upended and defined by along-lost love and the seemingly inescapable violence of the American West. A generational saga ranging from the villages of China to the establishment of the transcontinental railroad and the anti-Chinese movement in California, Straw Dogs of the Universe considers the tenacity of family ties and the courage it takes to survive in a country that rejects you, even as it relies upon your labor.

Threads is an inspiring picture book about a girl's survival of the 1930s Ukrainian Famine-Genocide, messaging hope, pride for one's heritage, and context for today's War in Ukraine.

The threads on Zlata's beautiful birthday blouse were knotted by her mother's hands. "Red is for love, and black is for sadness," her Papa says. Her Mama warns her not to show it off. Ever since the Communists came from Russia to Ukraine, they prohibited the teaching of Ukrainian culture. They've even taken the grain from Zlata's family's fields. But despite the danger, her parents refuse to give up their art, language, or beliefs.

As Zlata works to help her community survive, she finds that the dream of freedom is stitched deeper into the Ukrainian spirit than she could ever imagine.

Drawing from her own family's experience in the 1932-33 Ukrainian Famine-Genocide, Lina Maslo weaves a thoughtful story that dares us not the forget the pain of the past as it informs the present conflict in Ukraine and inspires hope for the future.

"In a fresh perspective on events that changed the universe, Bonnie's Rocket reveals to readers that STEM is at its most powerful when it is personal." --Andrea Beaty, New York Times bestselling author of Rosie Revere, Engineer

Bonnie's father is an engineer for the Apollo 11 space mission. Bonnie is an engineer too, developing a model rocket that she plans to shoot high into the sky. While Baba works on the moon-landing module far away, Bonnie designs, builds, and tests her own project -- with sometimes disastrous results! Throughout the process, Baba's letters encourage her in her work, and after the astronauts return from the moon, Baba comes home in time to see Bonnie launch her amazing rocket.

Inspired by the experiences of the author's grandfather, who helped design the space suits and life-support systems on the Apollo 11 lunar module, Bonnie's Rocket celebrates the diverse team that contributed to one of the United States's greatest achievements. It's also a heartwarming father-daughter story and a terrific gift for budding engineers and space fans of all ages.