Best New Historical Fiction - May 2023
The Friday Night Club by Sofia Lundberg, Alyson Richman, and M.J. Rose
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: May 16, 2023
Synopsis:
An atmospheric new novel from Annabelle Thorpe, set in wartime Italy and following the fortunes of an Italian family under Mussolini's rule. 1943, Wartime Italy Trattoria di Luca sits at the heart of the small Umbrian town of Amatino. For decades it has been run by the di Luca and Capaldi patriarchs and become a byword not only for fabulous food, but also wine from the Capaldi vineyard. But now the last of these great men is dead, Italy is consumed by war and everything must change. Sophie di Luca has always assumed her beloved father would leave the trattoria to her, a fine chef in her own right. But in Mussolini’s Italy a woman’s place is strictly in the home, and Sophie’s father has secretly arranged for Giorgio Capaldi to come back from Rome to take over Trattoria di Luca. Charismatic, forceful, grieving the loss of his wife and unborn baby in an Allied bombing raid, Giorgio is in no mood to compromise with Sophie. As conflict within the family rises, Mussolini falls and the Germans march in. Life is about to become very dangerous indeed.
Why We Recommend It!
The Friday Night Club by Sofia Lundberg, Alyson Richman, and M.J. Rose brings to life a hidden art history by immersing readers in dual timeline narrative filled with honest emotion and the supernatural occult.
Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Release Date: May 2, 2023
Synopsis:
As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best...
You were born to a king, but you marry a tyrant. You stand by helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore, and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts of your own. Because this was not the first offense against you. This was not the life you ever deserved. And this will not be your undoing. Slowly, you plot.
But when your husband returns in triumph, you become a woman with a choice.
Acceptance or vengeance, infamy follows both. So, you bide your time and force the gods' hands in the game of retribution. For you understood something long ago that the others never did.
If power isn't given to you, you have to take it for yourself.
Why We Recommend It!
A dramatic, action-packed telling of a Greek mythological story, Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati is a compelling tale of a worthy Spartan woman who proves she is far too strong to be overshadowed by her more well-known sister Helena.
Hula by Jasmin Iolani Hakes
Publisher: Harpervia
Release Date: May 2, 2023
Synopsis:
"There's no running away on an island. Soon enough, you end up where you started."
Hi'i is proud to be a Naupaka, a family renowned for its contributions to hula and her hometown of Hilo, Hawaii, but there's a lot she doesn't understand. She's never met her legendary grandmother and her mother has never revealed the identity of her father. Worse, unspoken divides within her tight-knit community have started to grow, creating fractures whose origins are somehow entangled with her own family history.
In Hula, Hi'i sees a chance to live up to her name and solidify her place within her family legacy. But in order to win the next Miss Aloha Hula competition, she will have to turn her back on everything she had ever been taught, and maybe even lose the very thing she was fighting for.
Told in part in the collective voice of a community fighting for its survival Hula is a spellbinding debut that offers a rare glimpse into a forgotten kingdom that still exists in the heart of its people.
Why We Recommend It!
A sweeping saga of family dysfunction and cultural survival, Hula by Jasmin Iolani Hakes lays bare the stark and troubling realities of U.S. colonialism in one of the world’s most beautiful settings.
The East Indian by Brinda Charry
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Release Date: May 2, 2023
Synopsis:
Meet Tony: insatiably curious, deeply compassionate, with a unique perspective on every scene he encounters. Kidnapped and transported to the New World after traveling from the British East India Company's outpost on the Coromandel Coast to the teeming streets of London, young Tony finds himself in Jamestown, Virginia, where he and his fellow indentured servants--boys like himself, men from Africa, a mad woman from London--must work the tobacco plantations. Orphaned and afraid, Tony initially longs for home. But as he adjusts to his new environment, finding companionship and even love, he can envision a life for himself after servitude. His dream: to become a medicine man, or a physician's assistant, an expert on roots and herbs, a dispenser of healing compounds.
Like the play that captivates him--Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream--Tony's life is rich with oddities and hijinks, humor and tragedy. Set during the early days of English colonization in Jamestown, before servitude calcified into racialized slavery, The East Indian gives authentic voice to an otherwise unknown historic figure and brings the world he would have encountered to vivid life. In this coming-of-age tale, narrated by a most memorable literary rascal, Charry conjures a young character sure to be beloved by readers for years to come.
Why We Recommend It!
Based on a real historical figure, The East Indian by Brinda Charry provides a new, diverse, and complex view of the Jamestown colony in a way that is touching and necessary.
To Die Beautiful by Buzzy Jackson
Publisher: Dutton
Release Date: May 2, 2023
Synopsis:
How far would you go to protect the people and country you love?
It's 1940 and Hannie Schaft is a shy nineteen-year-old law student living in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands with ambitious goals for her future. But dreams die in wartime, and Hannie's closest friends are no longer safe as fascism insidiously rises in her country. Hiding them is not enough. Hannie may be young but she can't stand aside as the menace of Nazi evil tightens its grip. Driven by love and moral outrage, Hannie soon becomes an armed member of the Dutch Resistance movement.
Hannie discovers her own untapped ferocity--wearing lipstick and heels to lure powerful Nazis close and assassinate them at point-blank range, and bombing munitions factories. As humanity collapses around her, Hannie finds a chosen family of friends within the Resistance and falls in love with a dashing fellow resister at a tremendous cost. Her greatest weapon is her determination to "stay human" (blijf menselijk) . . . a promise increasingly difficult to keep.
As Hannie is drawn deeper into a web of plots, disguises and assassinations, whispers spread like wildfire among enemy and friend alike. They all know of her, if not her name: she's "the Girl with Red Hair." A match for any Nazi soldier. A true threat. And a target.
To Die Beautiful is a timely look at how fascism flourishes and what good people do to fight back. Based on real events, To Die Beautiful is told with the drama and emotional resonance of meticulously researched history.
Why We Recommend It!
A gripping tale of the Dutch Resistance during WWII, To Die Beautiful by Buzzy Jackson manages to share a hidden history in a way that humanizes both the best and worst of what history shows us to be.
