Historical Fiction

The Alice Network is the seventh novel by author Kate Quinn. First published in 2017, the book is classified as historical fiction. It became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and was also listed as a Summer Pick by Good Housekeeping, Parade, Library Journal, and Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club. Quinn has written four novels in the Empress of Rome Saga and two books set during the Italian Renaissance. The Alice Network and her... Read The Alice Network Summary

American writer Michael Chabon won the Pulitzer Prize, as well as the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, for his 2000 historical fiction novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The story unfolds in the period leading up to World War II and continues through the war years and beyond. The main characters are two Jewish cousins living in New York City and seeking success in the emerging comic book industry. One is the artist Josef... Read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Summary

The Angel's Game is a 2008 supernatural mystery novel by the Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Set in Barcelona in the 1920s and 1930s, the book chronicles a young crime novelist's efforts to unravel an occult conspiracy amid the political turmoil of pre-Francoist Spain. It is the second entry in Zafón's Cemetery of Forgotten Books series and a prequel to 2001's Shadow of the Wind, but The Angel's Game is designed to be read as... Read The Angel's Game Summary

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, by Mordecai Richler, originally published in 1959, follows the exploits of a working-class Jewish boy growing up in a turbulent neighborhood and family in Montreal, Canada. Told in four parts, the novel chronicles Duddy’s relentless pursuit of higher social status and monetary success. Duddy travels on both sides of the law in his business dealings, keeping company with moguls and outlaws alike. He ends up working in industries that he... Read The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz Summary

The Artificial Silk Girl, by Irmgard Keun, originally published in 1932 as Das kunstseidene Mädchen, is an example of Neue Sachlichkeit, a German literary movement of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). This guide follows the 2019 Penguin Modern Classics version translated by Kathie von Ankum. Plot SummaryDoris, an 18-year-old German girl from a mid-sized town in the Ruhr Valley, dreams of becoming a star and living a life of luxury. She comes from a lower-middle-class family, lives... Read The Artificial Silk Girl Summary

Originally written in German and published in 2002, Jan-Philipp Sendker’s debut novel, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, was translated into English by Kevin Wiliarty in 2006. An international bestseller, the novel received the Indies Choice Honor Award for Best Fiction Novel in 2013. In response to such acclaim, Sendker penned a sequel, A Well-Tempered Heart, in 2012. The novel is international in scope—being written by a German journalist who lived in upstate New York, detailing... Read The Art of Hearing Heartbeats Summary

The Assault is an historical fiction novel written by Dutch author Harry Mulisch. First published in 1982 under the Dutch title De Aanslag, the novel was translated and published in English in 1985 and later translated into over a dozen languages. Mulisch was born in Haarlem, Netherlands, the same setting in which The Assault occurs. The story is based on actual events and Mulisch’s experiences during German occupation in World War II. The narrative is... Read The Assault Summary

The Attack is a 2005 book written by Yasmina Khadra, translated in 2006 by John Cullen and published by Anchor Books. It describes the aftermath of a suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv and a man’s struggle to accept his wife’s involvement in the attack. Plot SummaryThe Introduction of the novel describes an unnamed narrator (later revealed as Dr. Amin Jaafari) watching a religious figure get into a car in a busy crowd. An explosion rocks... Read The Attack Summary

The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez debuted in Spain in 1975. The English translation published in 1976. Márquez’s most notable work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, earned him a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982 and reflects his distinct magical realist style, an artistic genre first recognized in literature in predominantly Latin American writing during the 1940s. The Autumn of the Patriarch, published seven years later, also features Márquez’s magical style and... Read The Autumn of the Patriarch Summary

The Awakening is Kate Chopin’s second novel. It was first published in 1899 and is considered one of the first examples of feminist fiction.The novel opens in the 1890s Louisiana, at Grand Isle, a summer holiday resort popular among wealthy Creoles who live in nearby New Orleans. Edna Pontellier, her husband, Léonce, and their two children are vacationing at the cottages of Madame Lebrun. Léonce is a kind and devoted husband, but he is often... Read The Awakening Summary

In his fantasy/horror novella, The Ballad of Black Tom (2016), Victor LaValle reworks H.P. Lovecraft’s story, “The Horror at Red Hook,” to explore horror tropes from the perspective of an African American protagonist living in a racist world. The novella won the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the World Fantasy Award, among others. LaValle is an award-winning author of science fiction, horror, fantasy, and comic books known for problematizing the racial assumptions inherent in these genres... Read The Ballad of Black Tom Summary

Elif Shafak’s 2006 novel The Bastard of Istanbul weaves together the stories of two rival cultures, those of the Turks and the Armenians—peoples who haven’t yet healed from the wound opened by the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Shafak uses the stories of two families—the Turkish Kazancis and the Armenian Tchakhmakchians—who live seemingly disparate lives on two different continents but are connected by a past that reveals how deeply interconnected these families and historical enemies are. Shafak uses... Read The Bastard of Istanbul Summary

The Birth House is a work of historical fiction written by Canadian novelist Ami McKay and published in 2009. The book was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and won three Libris Awards from the Canadian Booksellers Association. The story takes place in the early 20th century during World War I and is set primarily in Scots Bay, a small shipbuilding community in Nova Scotia, Canada. While she is originally from Indiana, McKay... Read The Birth House Summary

Published in 2015, The Blackthorn Key is a children’s historical fantasy novel by Kevin Sands. Set in 17th-century London, the story follows Christopher Rowe, the young apprentice to a successful apothecary, as he puts all his skills to the test to uncover a terrible secret that is threatening the city’s apothecaries. After earning his degree in theoretical physics, Sands has worked as a business consultant and teacher. The Blackthorn Key, his debut novel, is the first book in... Read The Blackthorn Key Summary

Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin is actually three narratives in one. In the novel's frame narrative, we meet Iris Chase Griffen, one of the few surviving members of the once-wealthy Chase family of Port Ticonderoga, Canada. As the book opens, she is preparing to present a creative writing award endowed in memory of her deceased sister, Laura—the ostensible author of the novel-within-a-novel (also named The Blind Assassin). Now close to death herself, Iris decides to... Read The Blind Assassin Summary

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The Bluest Eye is the first novel of Nobel-Prize winning writer Toni Morrison. It was published in 1970. Set in Lorain, Ohio in 1941, the novel traces how Pecola Breedlove, the dark-skinned daughter of a poor African American family, came to be pregnant with her father's child and lost her sanity after the baby died.Morrison prefaces the novel with a Foreword in which she explains several of her choices in writing the novel. The novel... Read The Bluest Eye Summary

Not far from Cincinnati in 1830 lies a “great forest” occupied by the scattered homes of early settlers. Among them is an old, neglected cabin with a front door and boarded-up window. For decades, a white-haired man named Murlock has lived there; he looks 70 but is really 50. He lets his yard grow wild and provides for himself by selling animal skins.Murlock is found dead at his cabin, apparently of natural causes. He’s buried... Read The Boarded Window Summary

The Bondwoman’s Narrative is an autobiographical novel by Hannah Crafts, unpublished at the time of composition but rediscovered in 2002 by literary scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. The story follows Hannah’s journey as an enslaved person in Virginia and North Carolina before her self-emancipation and move to New Jersey. The book is likely the first novel written by an African American enslaved woman in the United States of America and the only written by a... Read The Bondwoman's Narrative Summary

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