Best New Historical Fiction - September 2023
Under the Java Moon by Heather B. Moore
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Release Date: September 5, 2023
Synopsis:
Java Island, 1941
Six-year-old Rita Vischer cowers in her family's dug-out bomb shelter, listening to the sirens and waiting for a bomb to fall. Her charmed life on Java--living with other Dutch families--had always been peaceful, but when Holland declares war on Japan and the Japanese army invades Indonesia, Rita's family is forced to relocate to a POW camp, and Rita must help care for her little brother, Georgie.
Mary Vischer is three months pregnant when she enters the Tjideng women's camp with thousands of other women and children. Her husband, George, is somewhere on the Java Sea with the Dutch Navy, so she must care alone for her young children, Rita and Georgie, and her frail mother-in-law. The brutal conditions of the overcrowded camp make starvation, malaria, and dysentery a grim reality. Mary must do everything she can to keep her family alive.
George Vischer survives the bombing of his minesweeper but feels little hope floating on a small dinghy in the Java Sea. Reaching the northern tip of the Thousand Islands would be a miracle. Focusing on the love of his life, Mary, and his two children, he battles against the sea and merciless sun. He'll do whatever it takes to close the divide between him and his family, even if it means risking being captured by the Japanese.
Under the Java Moon highlights a little-known part of WWII history and the impact of war on Indonesia, its people, and the more than 100,000 Dutch men, women, and children who were funneled into prison camps and faced with the ultimate fight for survival.
Why We Recommend It!
Based on a true story, Under the Java Moon by Heather B. Moore exposes readers the realities of war in the Dutch East Indies by zooming in on the cares, hopes, and hardships of one family.
The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson
Publisher: Atria Books
Release Date: September 5, 2023
Synopsis:
Cornwall, 1730: A young girl known only as Red travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient Cornish method of the Square of Sevens. Shortly before he dies, her father entrusts Red's care to a gentleman scholar, along with a document containing the secret of the Square of Sevens technique.
Raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendor of Bath, Red's fortune-telling delights in high society. But she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him?
The pursuit of these mysteries takes her from Cornwall and Bath to London and Devon, from the rough ribaldry of the Bartholomew Fair to the grand houses of two of the most powerful families in England. And while Red's quest brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads to grave danger.
Laura Shepherd-Robinson, "the queen of modern Georgian literature" (Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora), has written a dazzling and Dickensian story of mystery and intrigue, with audacious twists and turns.
Why We Recommend It!
A story with a twist, The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson takes readers on a mysterious and engrossing journey that feels both effortless and satisfying.
The Royal Windsor Secret by Christine Wells
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Release Date: September 12, 2023
Synopsis:
Cleo Davenport has heard the whispers: the murmured conversations that end abruptly the second she walks into a room. Told she was an orphan, she knows the rumor--that her father is none other than the Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne. And at her childhood home at Cairo's Shepheard's Hotel, where royals, rulers, and the wealthy live, they even called her "The Princess."
But her life is turned upside down when she turns seventeen. Sent to London under the chaperonage of her very proper aunt, she's told it's time to learn manners and make her debut. But Cleo's life can't be confined to a ballroom. She longs for independence and a career as a jewelry designer for Cartier, but she cannot move forward until she finds out about her past.
Determined to unlock the truth, Cleo travels from London, back to Cairo, and then Paris, where her investigations take a shocking turn into the world of the Parisian demi-monde, and a high-class courtesan whose scandalous affair with the young Prince of Wales threatened to bring down the British monarchy long before anyone had heard of Wallis Simpson.
Why We Recommend It!
For fans of British Royal history, The Royal Windsor Secret by Christine Wells is a character-driven story that captures readers with its young, determined main character, Cleo Davenport, who only wishes to discover the truth of her parentage.
Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener
Publisher: Harpervia
Release Date: September 26, 2023
Synopsis:
Alone in a museum in Paris, Gabriela Wiener finds herself confronted by her complicated family heritage. Visiting an exhibition of pre-Columbian artifacts, she peers at countless sculptures of Indigenous faces each nearly identical to her own and recognizes herself in them - but the man responsible for pillaging them was her own great-great-grandfather, Austrian colonial explorer Charles Wiener. Wiener's "grand" contribution to history: the near rediscovery of Machu Picchu, nearly 4,000 plundered artifacts, a book about Peru, and a bastard child.
In the wake of her father's death, Gabriela begins to unpack the legacy that is her birthright. From the brutal racism she encounters in her ancestor Charles's book to her father's infidelity, she traces a cycle of abandonment, jealousy and colonial violence, in turn reframing her own personal struggles with desire, love, and race. As she explores the history of two continents, her investigation brings her closer and closer to the more intimate realm where both colonizer and colonized ultimately converge- the body- and her own desire to free it. Guided by a penetrating eye and fearsome wit, Undiscovered embarks the reader on a quest to pick up the pieces of something shattered long ago in the hopes of making it whole once again.
Probing wounds both personal and historical, Undiscovered is a culminating labor for our age, an earnest attempt to decolonize one's own desire.
Why We Recommend It!
From Peruvian journalist Gabriela Wiener, Undiscovered confronts colonialism and identity head on by looking at the mistakes of the past and how those consequences affect us personally and as a society.
Inferno on Fifth by Marlie Parker Wasserman
Publisher: Level Best Books
Release Date: September 25, 2023
Synopsis:
Fire!
St. Patrick’s Day, New York City, 1899. Spectators along Fifth Avenue, unaware of impending doom, enjoy the parade and the bands playing Irish tunes. Suddenly marchers halt at the immense and luxurious Windsor Hotel, watching terrified women at upper-floor windows cringe at the flames—and then leap. Within two hours, the fire kills close to one hundred people.
What set it off? An ember from a cigar? Robbers who sparked the fire as a distraction? Broken boilers in the basement?
Spunky hotel guest Marguerite Wells decides she and her two wealthy friends can discover what started the terrible inferno while three newly jobless hotel maids struggle to figure out how they can survive.
Inspired by the true story of the shocking fire that leveled one of Manhattan’s elegant hotels twelve years before the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Inferno on Fifth prompts readers to ask how they would react in the defining seconds of an irreversible tragedy.
Why We Recommend It!
Based on the Windsor Hotel Fire of 1899, Inferno on Fifth by Marlie Parker Wasserman uses a fascinating cast of characters to create an engaging mystery that creatively imagines what might have happened in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy.
