Historical Fiction
Historical Fiction
son, has joined an underground resistance movement—a
choice that will lead to more upheaval and bloodshed
across a ravaged Ethiopia.
Charles Jessold,
Considered as a Murderer
Bellfield Hall: Or, the
Deductions of
Miss Dido Kent
Wesley Stace
Anna Dean
E
1
805. An engagement party is taking place for Mr Richard Montague, son of wealthy landowner Sir Edgar
Montague, and his fiancee Catherine. During a dance with
his beloved, a strange thing happens: a man appears at
Richard's shoulder and appears to communicate something to him without saying a word. Instantly breaking off
the engagement, he rushes off to speak to his father, never
to be seen again. Distraught with worry, Catherine sends
for her spinster aunt, Miss Dido Kent, who has a penchant
for solving mysteries.
ngland, 1923. A gentleman critic named Leslie Shepherd tells the macabre story of a gifted young composer, Charles Jessold. On the eve of his revolutionary
new opera's premiere, Jessold murders his wife and her
lover, and then commits suicide in a scenario that
strangely echoes the plot of his opera — which Shepherd
has helped to write. The opera will never be performed.
Shepherd first shares his police testimony, then recalls his
relationship with Jessold in his role as critic, biographer,
and friend. And with each retelling of the story, significant
new details cast light on the identity of the real victim in
Jessold's tragedy.
The Eden Hunter
Beneath the Lion's Gaze
Skip Horack
Maaza Mengiste
T
his memorable, heartbreaking story opens in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974, on the eve of a revolution.
Yonas kneels in his mother’s prayer room, pleading to his
god for an end to the violence that has wracked his family
and country. His father, Hailu, a prominent doctor, has
been ordered to report to jail after helping a victim of state
-sanctioned torture to die. And Dawit, Hailu’s youngest
Southeast Regional Mail Services/ January 2012
I
n 1816, five years after being captured and sold into
slavery, Kau, a pygmy tribesman, flees south into the
Spanish Florida wilderness, determined to find a place
where he can once again live in harmony with nature.
Both haunted and driven by his memories of Africa, he
embarks on an epic quest through the treacherous pinewoods, swamps, and river bottoms of the Southern frontier. He encounters renegades and thieves, traitors and
mercenaries, and the dark prophetic magic of the forest
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Historical Fiction
before he finally finds himself within the walls of a remote
fort on the Apalachicola River. There, he becomes the
reluctant companion of several hundred runaway slaves
once recruited by the British to fight in the War of 1812,
then abandoned to fend for themselves against the American forces intent on destroying their remarkable stronghold.
Exit the Actress
Priya Parmar
threatened when a young Christian girl is found with her
throat slashed in a Jewish shop on the eve of Passover.
Charged with blood libel, the shopkeeper and his family
are arrested, and all that stands in the way of a rabid Christian mob is a clever Talmudic scholar, newly arrived from
Poland, named Benyamin Ben-Akiva. Granted just three
days to bring the true killer to justice—hampered by rabbinic law, with no allies or connections, and only his wits,
knowledge, and faith to guide him—Benyamin sets off on a
desperate search for answers.
Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift
W
hile selling oranges in the Theatre Royal, Covent
Garden, sweet and sprightly Ellen "Nell" Gwyn
impresses the theaters proprietors with a wit and sparkle
that belie her youth and poverty. She quickly earns a place
in the company, narrowly avoiding the life of prostitution
to which her sister has already succumbed. As her roles
evolve from supporting to starring, the scope of her life
broadens as well. Soon Ellen is dressed in the finest fashions, charming the theatrical, literary, and royal luminaries
of Restoration England. Ellen grows up on the stage, experiencing first love and heartbreak and eventually becoming the mistress of Charles II. Despite his reputation as a
libertine, Ellen wholly captures his heart; and he hers; but
even the most powerful love isn’t enough to stave off the
gossip and bitter court politics that accompany a royal romance.
The Fifth Servant
Kenneth Wishnia
I
T
he wayward traveler - Lemuel Gulliver - ends up on a
series of bizarrely populated islands. First he is a giant among little people, but then sees the situation reversed when he's surrounded by giants twelve times his
size. Next he finds himself in the clouds, in a society of
devoted but ultimately hapless mathematicians. Lastly, his
journey brings him to an island where incredibly noble
horses must deal with a race of uncouth, reviled ape-men:
the Yahoos. The satire is thick and unrelenting, but certainly not specific to the time and situation when Swift
wrote it, and thus it has been read and beloved for centuries.
The Irish Princess
Karen Harper
n 1592, Prague is a relatively safe refuge for Jews who
live within the gated walls of its ghetto. But the peace is
Southeast Regional Mail Services/ January 2012
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Historical Fiction
B
orn into a first family of Ireland, with royal ties on
both sides, Elizabeth Fitzgerald-known as Gera-finds
her world overturned when Henry VIII imprisons her
father, the Earl of Kildare, and brutally destroys her family. Torn from the home she loves, her remaining family
scattered, Gera dares not deny the refuge offered her in
England's glittering royal court. There she must navigate
ever-shifting alliances even as she nurtures her secret desire for revenge.
survival is a daily struggle for his family. When a brutal
beating lands Raj in the hospital of the prison camp where
his father is a guard, he meets a mysterious boy his own
age. David is a refugee, one of a group of Jewish exiles
whose harrowing journey took them from Nazi occupied
Europe to Palestine, where they were refused entry and
sent on to indefinite detainment in Mauritius.
Letters from Home
Kristina McMorris
The Lady's Slipper
Deborah Swift
1
660. King Charles II has returned from exile, but
memories of the English Civil War still rankle. There
are old scores to settle, and religious differences threaten
to overturn a fragile peace. When Alice Ibbetson discovers a rare orchid, the Ladys Slipper, growing in a wood
belonging to Richard Wheeler, she is captivated by its
beauty; though Wheeler, a Quaker, is determined to keep
the flower where God intended it to grow. Knowing that
the orchid is the last of its kind, she steals the flower, little
dreaming that her seemingly simple act will set off a chain
of events that will lead to murder and exile, and change
her life forever…
C
hicago, 1944. Liz Stephens has little interest in attending a USO club dance with her friends Betty and
Julia. She doesn’t need a flirtation with a lonely serviceman when she’s set to marry her childhood sweetheart.
Yet something happens the moment Liz glimpses Morgan
McClain. They share only a brief exchange—cut short by
the soldier's evident interest in Betty—but Liz can't forget
him. Thus, when Betty asks her to ghostwrite a letter to
Morgan, stationed overseas, Liz reluctantly agrees.
The Lost Books of the
Odyssey
Zachary Mason
The Last Brother
Nathacha Appanah
Z
A
s 1944 comes to a close, nine-year-old Raj is unaware
of the war devastating the rest of the world. He lives
in Mauritius, a remote island in the Indian Ocean, where
Southeast Regional Mail Services/ January 2012
achary Masons brilliant and beguiling debut novel re
imagines Homers classic story of the hero Odysseus
and his long journey home after the fall of Troy. With
hypnotic prose, terrific imagination, and dazzling literary
skill, Mason creates alternative episodes, fragments, and
revisions of Homers original that, taken together, open up
this classic Greek myth to endless reverberating interpretations.
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Historical Fiction
The Mistaken Wife
Rickshaw Boy
Rose Melikan
Lao She
I
t is the autumn of 1797. The war between the British
and the French is being fought not just openly but also
in secret by a network of spies. Reluctant heiress Mary
Finch is no stranger to adventure, but even she hesitates
before accepting this assignment: to travel secretly to Paris
and disrupt vital Franco-American negotiations.
F
irst published in China in 1937, Rickshaw Boy is the
story of Xiangzi, an honest and serious country boy
who works as a rickshaw puller in Beijing. A man of simple needs whose greatest ambition is to one day own his
own rickshaw, Xiangzi is nonetheless thwarted, time and
again, in his attempts to improve his lot in life.
The Princess of Nowhere
The Queen's Captive
Prince Lorenzo Borghese
Barbara Kyle
T
he sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, Pauline knows that
her sole purpose has always been to make an advantageous marriage to further her ambitious brother's goals.
But her joie de vivre cannot be contained—much to the
dismay of her new husband, Prince Camillo Borghese.
Pauline and Camillo's relationship is tempestuous at best,
with Pauline constantly seeking the attention of other
men—especially after a heartbreaking loss leaves her devastated, desperate for attention, and searching for answers.
Yet despite everything, the love that brought Pauline and
Camillo together, as imperfect as it might be, can never
truly be stifled.
Southeast Regional Mail Services/ January 2012
E
ngland, 1554. In the wake of the failed Wyatt Rebellion, a vengeful Queen Mary has ordered all conspirators captured and executed. Among the imprisoned is
her own sister, twenty-one-year-old Princess Elizabeth.
Though she protests her innocence, Elizabeth’s brave
stand only angers Mary more. Elizabeth longs to gain her
liberty—and her sister’s crown. In Honor and Richard
Thornleigh and their son, Adam, the young princess has
loyal allies. Disgusted by Queen Mary’s proclaimed intent
to burn heretics, Honor visits Elizabeth in the Tower and
they quickly become friends. And when Adam foils a
would-be assassin, Elizabeth’s gratitude swells into a powerful—and mutual—attraction. But while Honor is willing to
risk her own safety for her future queen, aiding in a new
rebellion against the wrathful Mary will soon lead her to an
impossible choice…
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Historical Fiction
To Serve a King
The Winter Thief
Donna Russo Morin
Jenny White
F
rom her earliest days, Genevieve Gravois has known
one fact above all: Francis I, king of France, is her
enemy. Raised by her embittered aunt after her parents’
deaths, Genevieve has been schooled in things no woman
should know: how to decipher codes, how to use a dagger
and a bow, and how to kill. For Henry VIII has a destiny
in mind for the young girl—as his most powerful and dangerous spy.
Walking to Gatlinburg
Howard Frank Mosher
A
J
anuary 1888. Vera Arti carries The Communist Manifesto in Armenian through Istanbul's streets, unaware of
the men following her. The police discover a shipload of
guns, and the Imperial Ottoman Bank is blown up. Suspicion falls on a socialist commune that Arti's friends organized in the eastern mountains. Investigating, Special Prosecutor Kamil Pasha encounters a ruthless adversary in the
secret police who has convinced the Sultan that the commune is leading an Armenian secessionist movement and
should be destroyed, along with the surrounding villages.
Kamil must stop the massacre, but he finds himself on the
wrong side of the law, framed for murder and accused of
treason, his family and the woman he loves threatened.
stunning and lyrical Civil War thriller, Walking to
Gatlinburg is a spellbinding story of survival, wilder-
ness adventure, mystery, and love in the time of war. Morgan Kinneson is both hunter and hunted. The sharpshooting 17-year-old from Kingdom County, Vermont, is
determined to track down his brother Pilgrim, a doctor
who has gone missing from the Union Army. But first
Morgan must elude a group of murderous escaped convicts in pursuit of a mysterious stone that has fallen into his
possession.
Southeast Regional Mail Services/ January 2012
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