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The Inheritance of Loss, a 2006 book by Kiran Desai, explores immigration, identity, and relationships on both the interpersonal and international scale. Spanning India, England, and the United States, the novel details the conflict between traditional Indian ways of life and the shiny opulence of Western nations. The book won several awards, including the Man Booker Prize in 2006 and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award in 2007. Desai wrote the book in the... Read The Inheritance of Loss Summary

A historical novel, The Invention of Wings (2014), by Sue Monk Kidd, traces the intersecting lives of the abolitionist sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimké, and Sarah’s slave, Hetty Handful Grimké. Spanning 35 years and set primarily in Charleston, South Carolina in the 1800s, the novel begins on Sarah’s 11th birthday, when Handful is given to her as a birthday present. It ends when Sarah helps Handful and her sister, Sky, escape slavery, and Sarah fulfills... Read The Invention of Wings Summary

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The Island of Sea Woman (March 2019) is the most recent title by New York Times bestselling author Lisa See. It is classified in the categories of Historical Asian Fiction and Asian American Literature. Many of See’s books discuss the Chinese immigrant experience in America; her paternal great-grandfather was Chinese, and this family history has had a great influence on her historical fiction. See’s books have been published in 39 languages, and she has been... Read The Island of Sea Women Summary

The Jade Peony is a 1995 novel by Wayson Choy. The book is divided into three parts, each with a distinct narrator. Each narrator is a child belonging to a Chinese-Canadian family; the novel is set during the escalation of World War II. The book follows each of these characters in a fully developed plot arc. Together, the parts form a tapestry that provides the reader with an incisive and insightful emotional, historical, and sociological... Read The Jade Peony Summary

The Japanese Lover is Isabel Allende’s 18th novel. Like most of Allende’s work, it falls under the genres of magical realism and historical fiction. The novel was originally published in 2015, the year after Allende was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In addition to the overarching focus on romance and love, the novel addresses issues relating to World War II (WWII), Japanese American incarceration during the 1940s, racism, homophobia, and the struggles of aging... Read The Japanese Lover Summary

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Ruth Hogan’s 2017 debut novel The Keeper of Lost Things is a romance infused with elements of the paranormal and the magical. Hogan, a career civil servant in the UK, was approaching 50 when the book was published. A prolonged recovery from a car accident and then a struggle with cancer gave her the opportunity to devote time to what had been her childhood passion for storytelling. A voracious reader, she had been writing short... Read The Keeper of Lost Things Summary

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The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar (2003) is a historical fiction novel detailing the fate of the Romanovs by Robert Alexander (a pen name for Robert Zimmerman). Although Alexander is American, he spent decades in Russia. He attended Leningrad State University and, afterward, ran various businesses in St. Petersburg. As such, he has personal experience with Russian culture. He wrote several historical fiction novels that take place during the Russian Revolution—including Rasputin’s... Read The Kitchen Boy Summary

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Kathleen Grissom’s 2010 novel, The Kitchen House, is a work of historical fiction that centers on the happenings at Captain James Pyke’s southern Virginia tobacco plantation, Tall Oaks, beginning in 1791. The two narrative threads follow Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan working at Tall Oaks as an indentured servant, and Belle, the beautiful young daughter of James and his slave. The novel is told from the first-person perspectives of Belle and Lavinia alternately over 55... Read The Kitchen House Summary

Edward P. Jones’s novel The Known World, published in 2003 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2004), tells the interconnected stories of the people living at the antebellum Virginia plantation of Henry Townsend, a black slaveowner. The novel begins on the night of Henry’s death in 1855, but the story is not linear. The narrative seamlessly moves both backward in time to provide context for characters and forward in time to reveal characters’... Read The Known World Summary

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The Language of Flowers (2011) is the debut novel of Vanessa Diffenbaugh. This fictional story follows Victoria Jones, a foster care child who is legally emancipated at the age of 18 and communicates primarily through the language of flowers. Diffenbaugh was inspired by the informational text Language of Flowers by Kate Greenway, which outlined the use of secret messages delivered via bouquet during the Victorian Era. Diffenbaugh studied creative writing and education at Stanford University... Read The Language of Flowers Summary

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The Last Days of Night (2016) is a novel of historical fiction by Graham Moore, author of the The Sherlockian (2010). The story follows a young lawyer in New York City in 1888, as he attempts to discern who invented the light bulb: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, or Nikola Tesla. The Washington Post named The Last Days of Night one of the best books of 2016.Plot SummaryIt is 1888 on the island of Manhattan, and... Read The Last Days of Night Summary