New Books in Historical Fiction

Chip Jacobs
Arroyo

Rare Birds Books, 2019

New Books in Arts & Letters New Books in Historical Fiction New Books in Literature May 22, 2020 GP Gottlieb

Two guys named Nick Chance, both with clairvoyant dogs named Royo, both inventors living in Pasadena, California – in 1913 and 1993. The original Nick, who starts out working on an ostrich farm, is drawn to the Colorado Street Bridge and manages to meet some of the great personalities of... Read More

Janice Hadlow
The Other Bennet Sister

Henry Holt, 2020

New Books in Arts & Letters New Books in Historical Fiction New Books in Literature New Books Network May 6, 2020 C. P. Lesley

It is well known that the novels of Jane Austen (1775–1817), which enjoyed at best a modest success during her lifetime, have become ever more popular in the last fifty years or so. They support a small industry of remakes, spinoffs, and retellings. As Janice Hadlow notes while discussing The... Read More

Mari Coates
The Pelton Papers

She Writes Press, 2020

New Books in Art New Books in Arts & Letters New Books in Historical Fiction New Books in Literature New Books Network April 13, 2020 C. P. Lesley

Like the better-known and perhaps luckier Georgia O’Keeffe, the American painter Agnes Pelton also found her unique vision in the western desert. As Mari Coates details in our conversation, Pelton and O’Keeffe took art classes from the same teacher and had parallel careers in several ways, yet Pelton is relatively unknown... Read More

Maya Rodale, “An Heiress to Remember” (Avon Books, 2020)

Maya Rodale
An Heiress to Remember
The Gilded Age Girls Club
Avon, 2020

New Books in Arts & Letters New Books in Historical Fiction New Books in Literature March 12, 2020 C. P. Lesley

As Maya Rodale notes early in this interview, romance novels tend not to get the same respect as other categories of fiction, historical or otherwise. Here, and in her Dangerous Books for Girls, she argues persuasively that this bad reputation is an attempt by life’s insiders to undermine the central message... Read More

Laura Waterman, “Starvation Shore” (U Wisconsin Press, 2019)

Laura Waterman
Starvation Shore

University of Wisconsin Press, 2019

New Books in Arts & Letters New Books in Historical Fiction New Books in Literature New Books Network February 28, 2020 Michael F. Robinson

Laura Waterman talks about her novel, Starvation Shore (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019), which relies upon memoirs, letters, and diaries to reconstruct the life of the Greely Party as it attempted to survive impossible conditions. Waterman is a climber, conservationist, and author who has written many books with her husband Guy Waterman about... Read More

Emily Strelow
The Wild Birds

Rare Bird Books, 2018

New Books in Arts & Letters New Books in Environmental Studies New Books in Historical Fiction New Books in Literature New Books in Science & Technology New Books Network February 26, 2020 GP Gottlieb

An orphaned young woman disguises herself as a boy in order to escape the dangers of being alone in 1870’s San Francisco. A group of castoffs destroy the bird population of the Farallon Island by stealing and selling their eggs. A young woman raped in the 1980’s struggles to raise... Read More

Gabrielle Mathieu
Girl of Fire

Five Directions Press, 2019

New Books in Arts & Letters New Books in Fantasy New Books in Historical Fiction New Books in Literature February 20, 2020 C. P. Lesley

In the fantasy medieval land of Trea—a conservative society that despite its worship of the goddess Amur respects her human daughters only as wives and mothers—eighteen-year-old Berona has limited expectations for her future. Securing a handsome husband who will win her heart and teach her to dance seems like enough... Read More

Joan Schweighardt
Gifts for the Dead

Five Directions Press, 2019

New Books in Arts & Letters New Books in Historical Fiction New Books in Literature February 6, 2020 C. P. Lesley

Last summer, massive fires in the Amazon rain forest provoked environmental concerns around the world. But the history of exploitation—of the natural world of the rain forest and the people living in it—goes back at least to the rubber boom of the early twentieth century. This setting forms the backdrop... Read More