Finding Historical Fiction
To find more historical fiction, search the library catalog using the subject heading Historical Fiction.
Recommended Titles
This list contains titles published since 2020 and have stories set in the United States.
Use the listed call numbers to find the books on the third floor, unless otherwise specified. To learn more about call numbers, view the Finding Items in the Library Tutorial.
The Book of Lost Friends by Call Number: PS3573.I53165 B66 2020Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous era of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Hannie, a freed slave; Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now destitute plantation; and Juneau Jane, Lavinia's Creole half sister.
Cloudmaker by Call Number: PS3602.R64447 C56 2021The summer of 1937 will be a turning point for fourteen-year-old Houston "Huck" Finn. Huck is building his own airplane, and as the airplane takes shape, so does his burgeoning understanding of the world, including the battle over worldliness vs. godliness that has split his cousin Annelise from her family and, in a quieter way, divides Huck's family too.
The Four Winds by Call Number: PS3558.A4763 F68 2021Texas,1934. The world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa's tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive. Elsa must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California.
Hour of the Witch by Call Number: PS3552.O495 H68 2021A young Puritan woman--faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul--plots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive novel of historical suspense from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant.
The Lehman Trilogy by Call Number: PQ4913.A86 Q3513 2020Spanning three generations and 150 years, The Lehman Trilogy is a moving epic that dares to tell the story of modern capitalism through the saga of the Lehman brothers and their descendants. Surprising and exciting, brilliant and inventive, Stefano Massini's masterpiece--like Hamilton--is a story of immigration, ambition, and success.
The Librarian of Boone's Hollow by Call Number: PS3619.A97 L53 2020Traveling librarian ventures into the mining towns of Kentucky on horseback and rediscovers her passions in this powerful novel from the best-selling author of A Silken Thread.
Mary Jane by Call Number: PS3602.L397 M37 2021In 1970s Baltimore, fourteen-year-old Mary Jane is shy, quiet, and bookish, and she's glad when she lands a summer job as a nanny for the daughter of a local doctor. The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it's a mess. And even more troublesome: the doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job, helping a famous rock star dry out.
The Night Watchman by Call Number: PS3555.R42 N54 2020Based on the extraordinary life of Louis Erdrich's grandfather Patrick Gourneau, who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, with lightness and gravity, and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a literary master.
The Personal Librarian by Call Number: PS3620.E75 P47 2021Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. Pierpont Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world. But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs.
The Prettiest Star by Call Number: PS3619.I27 P74 2020At eighteen, Brian, like so many other promising young gay men, arrived in New York City without much more than a love for the freedom and release from his past that it promised. But within six short years, AIDS would claim his lover, his friends, and his future. Brian decides to write his mother a letter asking to come back to the place, and family, he was once so desperate to escape.
Ring Shout by Call Number: PS3603.L36843 R564 2020Now, rising in power, the Klan has a plot to unleash Hell on Earth. Luckily, Maryse Boudreaux has a magic sword and a head full of tales. When she's not running bootleg whiskey through Prohibition Georgia, she's fighting monsters she calls Ku Kluxes. But to confront this ongoing evil, she must journey between worlds to face nightmares made flesh--and her own demons.
The Sweetness of Water by Call Number: PS3608.A7832635 S94 2021Newly freed brothers Landry and Prentiss find themselves forced to hide near their former Georgia plantation. They're soon discovered by the land's owner and begin to live and work on his farm. But this sanctuary survives on a knife's edge, and it isn't long before the inhabitants of the nearby town of Old Ox react with fury at the alliances being formed only a few miles away.
The Vanishing Half by Call Number: PS3602.E66444 V36 2020A stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.
When Stars Rain Down by Call Number: PS3610.A355526 W47 2021Opal Pruitt is just about to turn 18 in the oppressively hot summer of 1936. The young black teenager's journey to adulthood will be forged in fire, though, as the Ku Klux Klan attacks her Colored Town neighborhood and she endures a vicious beating at the hands of an unknown white attacker.
Yellow Wife by Call Number: PS3610.O3758 Y45 2021Born on a plantation, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. She'd been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil's Half Acre, a jail in Virginia.
This list contains titles published since 2020 and have stories set outside of the United States.
Use the listed call numbers to find the books on the third floor, unless otherwise specified. To learn more about call numbers, view the Finding Items in the Library Tutorial.
The Book of Longings by Call Number: PS3611.I44 B66 2020Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, Ana is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. An encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything. Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary.
Book of the Little Axe by Call Number: PS3606.R3658 B66 2020In Trinidad, in 1796, teenage Rosa Rendón quietly rebels against typical female roles. By 1830, Rosa is living among the Crow Nation in Wyoming. Her son, Victor, has reached the age where he should seek his vision and become a man. But his path is blocked by Rosa's secrets. So Rosa sets out to take him on a journey to where his story began and, in turn, retraces her own roots.
The Cape Doctor by Call Number: PS3612.E93685 C36 2021Beginning in Cork, Ireland, the novel recounts Jonathan Mirandus Perry's journey from daughter to son in order to enter medical school and provide for family, but Perry soon embraced the new-found freedom of living life as a man.
An Earl the Girl and a Toddler by Call Number: PS3618.I533 E27 2021Surviving a shipwreck en route to London from Jamaica was just the start of Jemina St. Maur's nightmare. Suffering from amnesia, she was separated from anyone who might know her, and imprisoned in Bedlam. She was freed only because barrister Daniel Thackery, Lord Ashbrook, was convinced to betray the one thing he holds dear: the law.
The Evening and the Morning by Call Number: PR6056.O45 E88 2020It is 997 CE, the end of the Dark Ages. In these turbulent times, three characters find their lives intertwined. A young boatbuilder's life is turned upside down when the only home he's ever known is raided by Vikings. A Norman noblewoman marries for love, following her husband across the sea to a new land. A monk dreams of transforming his humble abbey into a center of learning.
Exile Music by Call Number: PS3619.T4485 E95 2020As a young girl growing up in Vienna in the 1930s, Orly has an idyllic childhood filled with music.Only vaguely aware of Hitler's rise or how her Jewish heritage will define her family's identity, Orly spends her days immersed in play with her best friend and upstairs neighbor, Anneliese. But in 1938, Orly's peaceful life is shattered when the Germans arrive.
Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Call Number: PR6065.F36 H35 2020On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week.
A Long Petal of the Sea by Call Number: PQ8098.1.L54 L3613 2020In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. General Franco and his Fascists overthrew the government; hundreds of thousands fled over the mountains to the French border. Roser, a pregnant young widow, finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. To survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them wants.
The Mountains Sing by Call Number: PR9560.9.N45 M68 2020Trà̂n Diệu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that will tear not just her beloved country but her family apart.
The Paris Library by Call Number: PS3619.K54 P37 2021Paris, 1939: Young and ambitious Odile Souchet seems to have the perfect life with her handsome police officer beau and a dream job at the American Library in Paris. When the Nazis march into the city, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books.
A Passage North by Call Number: PR9440.9.A78 P37 2021A young man journeys into Sri Lanka's formerly war-torn north, and into a country's soul, in this searing novel of love and the legacy of war from the award-winning author of "The Story of a Brief Marriage."
The Pull of the Stars by Call Number: PR6054.O547 P85 2020In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders -- Doctor Kathleen Lynn and Bridie Sweeney.
Something Unbelievable by Call Number: PS3611.U985 S66 2021An overwhelmed new mom discovers unexpected parallels between life in twenty-first-century America and her grandmother's account of their family's escape from the Nazis in this sharp, heartfelt novel.
The Twilight Zone by Call Number: PQ8098.16.E74 D5613 2021How do crimes vanish in plain sight? How does one resist a repressive regime? And who gets to shape the truths we live by and take for granted? The Twilight Zone pulls us into the dark portals of the past, reminding us that the work of the writer in the face of historical erasure is to imagine so deeply that these absences can be, for a time, spectacularly illuminated.
Utopia Avenue by Call Number: PR6063.I785 U86 2020Utopia Avenue may be the most extraordinary British band you've never heard of. Emerging from London's psychedelic scene in 1967,, Utopia Avenue released only two LPs during its brief blazing journey from the clubs of Soho and draughty ballrooms to Top of the Pops and the Top 10; to Amsterdam, Rome and a fateful American fortnight in the autumn of 1968.
This list contains titles that have won either the Walter Scott Prize, David J. Langum, Sr. Prize, or the Society of American Historians Prize.
Use the listed call numbers to find the books on the third floor, unless otherwise specified. To learn more about call numbers, view the Finding Items in the Library Tutorial.
The Buddha in the Attic by Call Number: PS3615.T88 B83 2011In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the picture brides’ extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, to the deracinating arrival of war.
The Cold Millions by Call Number: PS3573.A4722834 C65 2020The Dolans live by their wits, jumping freight trains and lining up for day work at crooked job agencies. While sixteen-year-old Rye yearns for a steady job and a home, his older brother, Gig, dreams of a better world, fighting alongside other union men for fair pay and decent treatment.
Days Without End by Call Number: PR6052.A729 D39 2016Thomas McNulty, aged barely seventeen and having fled the Great Famine in Ireland, signs up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas goes on to fight in the Indian Wars and, ultimately, the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in.
The Garden of Evening Mists by Call Number: PR9530.9.E54 G37 2012Malaya, 1949. After studying law at Cambrige and time spent helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals, Yun Ling Teoh seeks solace among the jungle fringed plantations of Northern Malaya where she grew up as a child.
The Heretic's Daughter by Call Number: PS3611.E674 H47 2008Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.
Heyday by Call Number: PS3551.N34554 H49 2007Englishman Benjamin Knowles impulsively journeys to New York City at the beginning of 1848. He becomes involved with three restless souls, and together they decide to join the California Gold Rush, unaware that a cold-blooded killer will track them across the country.
The Long Song by Call Number: PR6112.E889 L66 2010The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her "Marguerite." It is the arrival of a young English overseer, Robert Goodwin, that will dramatically change life in the great house for both July and her mistress.
The Long Take by Call Number: PR6068.O1925 L66 2019A Canadian veteran of D-Day travels through New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, struggling with his memories of the war and experiencing firsthand America's postwar social and racial divisions. The story is told in verse and illustrations.
Loving Frank by Call Number: PS3608.O725 L68 2007In 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.
The Mirror & the Light by Call Number: PR6063.A438 M36 2020England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Thomas Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. Cromwell has a powerful position at the court of King Henry VIII, but can he hold his own against a king who is increasingly fearful of high treason?
An Officer and a Spy by Call Number: PR6058.A69147 O33 2014January 1895. On a freezing morning in the heart of Paris, an army officer, Georges Picquart, witnesses a convicted spy, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, being publicly humiliated. Picquart,commander of a shadowy intelligence unit, the Statistical Section, gradually comes to believe there is something rotten at the heart of his organization.
Remember Ben Clayton by Call Number: PS3558.A626 R46 20111920. Texas rancher Lamar Clayton, lamenting his failure as a father, commissions sculptor Francis "Gil" Gilheaney to create a statue of Lamars son Ben, who was killed in World War I. Accompanying Gil is his daughter Maureen, who has secret artistic ambitions of her own.
Saint Monkey by Call Number: PS3620.O9596 S25 2014Two friends from the mountains of eastern Kentucky try to retain their friendship when one of them is invited to play the Apollo with a jazz group while the other sinks lower in her poor, backward, backwoods life.
There There by Call Number: PS3615.R32 T48 2018Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.
The Velveteen Daughter by Call Number: PS3608.U243 V45 2017The Velveteen Daughter reveals for the first time the true story of two remarkable women: Margery Williams Bianco, the author of one of the most beloved children's books of all time,The Velveteen Rabbit,and her daughter Pamela, a world-renowned child prodigy artist whose fame at one time greatly eclipses her mother's.
This list contains titles published before 2000 and are considered classics of the genre.
Use the listed call numbers to find the books on the third floor, unless otherwise specified. To learn more about call numbers, view the Finding Items in the Library Tutorial.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Call Number: PS3557.O35926 M45 1999We follow Sayuri's life: her early years in a small fishing village and as a geisha in Gion. And throughout her struggle we know of her secret love for the only man who ever showed her any kindness - a man who seems to be out of her reach.
The Name of the Rose by Call Number: PQ4865.C6 N613 1983The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. His delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths that take place in seven days and nights of apocalyptic terror.
Outlander by Call Number: PS3557.A22 O98 1991Hurtled back through time more than two hundred years to Scotland in 1743, Claire Randall finds herself caught in the midst of an unfamiliar world torn apart by violence, pestilence, and revolution and haunted by her growing feelings for James Fraser, a young soldier.
The Pillars of the Earth by Call Number: PR6056.O45 P55 2007A prior, a master builder, and their community try to build a cathedral to protect themselves while Stephen and the Empress Maud fight for the crown of England.
The Prince and the Pauper by Call Number: PS1316 .A1 2002 & eBook (click title)They are the same age. They look alike. In fact, there is but one difference between them- Tom Canty is a child of the London slums; Edward Tudor is heir to the throne of England. Just how insubstantial this difference really is becomes clear when a chance encounter leads to an exchange of roles...
The Scarlet Letter by Call Number: PS1868 .H31 2004 & eBook (click title)Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an affair and will not reveal her lover’s identity. The scarlet letter A (for adultery) she has to wear on her clothes, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her sin and her secrecy. She struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity.
Sophie's Choice by Call Number: PS3569.T9 S67Three stories are told: a young Southerner wants to become a writer; a turbulent love-hate affair between a brilliant Jew and a beautiful Polish woman; and of an awful wound in that woman's past--one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction.
A Tale of Two Cities by Call Number: PR4571.A1 2003 & eBook (click title)Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton may look the same but their personalities are very different. When Charles returns to Paris to attempt to save his servant, having fled to London from the French Revolution, he endangers his own life. Sydney may be able to help with his strong resemblance, and hopefully can also save Charles' life.
The Three Musketeers by Call Number: PQ2228 .T57 2011 & eBook (click title)Young, poor D'Artagnan is off to seek his fortune in Paris. Even before he reaches the city, he gets himself into mischief and, shortly after arriving, he offends three of the King's musketeers. But those adversaries soon turn into close allies, and together they confront increasingly complicated situations.
True Grit by Call Number: PS3566.O663 T78 2010Mattie Ross is just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 in cash money. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's blood. With the one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side, Mattie pursues the homicide into Indian Territory.
Beloved by Call Number: PS3563.O8749 B4 1987Sethe, an escaped slave living in post-Civil War Ohio with her daughter and mother-in-law, is persistently haunted by the ghost of her dead baby girl. Also available as an audiobook .
This list contains Young Adult titles published since 2017.
Use the listed call numbers to find these books in the Youth Collection on the second floor. To learn more about call numbers, view the Finding Items in the Library Tutorial.
The Black Kids by Call Number: YOUNG ADULT PZ7.1.R4277 Bl 2020Los Angeles, 1992. Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It's the end of senior year and they're spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. Everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley's not just one of the girls. She's one of the black kids.
Blood Water Paint by Call Number: YOUNG ADULT PZ7.5.M435 Blo 2018In Renaissance Italy, Artemisia Gentileschi endures the subjugation of women that allows her father to take credit for her extraordinary paintings, rape and the ensuing trial, and torture, buoyed by her deceased mother's stories of strong women of the Bible.
Dream Country by Call Number: YOUNG ADULT PZ7.1.G5 Dre 2018Dream Country is the story of five generations of young people from one African American family chasing an elusive dream across centuries and continents. Gibney conjures an ambitious, sinuous novel from a family tree twisted to its breaking point by slavery and colonialism but ultimately held together by hope and determination.
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Call Number: YOUNG ADULT PZ7.1.L42 Gen 2018Henry "Monty" Montague was bred to be a gentleman. His passions for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men, have earned the disapproval of his father. His quest for pleasures and vices have led to one last hedonistic hurrah as Monty, his best friend and crush Percy, and Monty's sister Felicity begin a Grand Tour of Europe.
Kent State by Call Number: YOUNG ADULT PZ7.5.W5 Ke 2020May 4, 1970, Kent State University. As protestors roil the campus, National Guardsmen are called in. In the chaos of what happens next, shots are fired and four students are killed. To this day, there is still argument of what happened and why. Deborah Wiles's Kent State gives a moving, terrifying, galvanizing picture of what happened that weekend in Ohio.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Call Number: YOUNG ADULT PZ7.L778786 Las 2021With the threat of deportation looming over her father--in spite of his hard-won citizenship and disavowal of Communism--seventeen-year-old American-born Chinese Lily Hu pursues a relationship with her Caucasian classmate Kath.
Letters from Cuba by Call Number: YOUNG ADULT PZ7.1.B447 Let 2020In 1938, Esther and her father escape Poland to make a new life in Cuba, while they work to rescue the rest of their Jewish family. Based on Ruth Behar's family history, this compelling story celebrates the resilience of the human spirit in the most challenging times.
Like a Love Story by Call Number: Young Adult YOUNG ADULT PZ7.1.N378 Lik 20191989, New York City. Reza knows he's gay and is terrified that someone will guess the truth. Judy has never imagined finding romance, until she falls for Reza. Art is Judy's best friend, their school's only out and proud teen. As Reza and Art grow closer, Reza struggles to find a way out of his deception that won't break Judy's heart and destroy the most meaningful friendship he's ever known.
The Pearl Thief by Call Number: YOUNG ADULT PZ7.W4358 Pe 2017Fifteen-year-old Julia Beaufort-Stuart wakes up in a hospital not knowing how she was injured, and soon befriends Euan McEwen, the Scottish Traveller boy who found her, and later, when a body is discovered, she experiences the prejudices his family has endured and tries to keep them from being framed for the crime.
A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Call Number: YOUNG ADULT PZ7.M2695 Ve 2018In 2002, a year after 9/11, sixteen-year-old Muslim girl Shirin, tired of being stereotyped and degraded, refuses to let anyone get close until she meets Ocean James, the first person who really seems to want to get to know her.
We Are Not Free by Call Number: YOUNG ADULT PZ7.1.C497 We 2020Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps.
