The best historical fiction books Get lost

in a different time and place with these beloved historical fiction novels.

American Princess
by Stephanie Marie Thornton

Alice may be the president's daughter, but she's nobody's darling. As bold as her signature color Alice Blue, the gum-chewing, cigarette-smoking, poker-playing First Daughter discovers that the only way a woman in Washington stands out is by making waves - oceans of them. With the clever sophistication of the brightest politician on the hill, Alice uses her celebrity to her advantage, testing the limits of her power and the seductive thrill of political entanglements. But Washington, DC is full of heartache and betrayal, and when Alice falls hard for a smooth-talking congressman, all it takes for this rebel to emerge victorious and claim her place as an American icon. As Alice struggles through the devastation of two World Wars and fights a sharp feud with her famous Roosevelt cousins, it's no wonder everyone in the capital refers to her as the Other Washington Monument - and Alice plans to survive them all.

See Also: The 30 Best Dystopian Novels Everyone Should Read

Washington Black
by Esi Edugyan Develdslave

eleven-year-old George Washington Black - or Wash - on a sugar plantation in Barbados, is initially terrified when he is chosen as the servant of his master's brother. To his surprise, however, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor and abolitionist. Soon, Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man through the air, where even a boy born in chains can embrace a life of dignity and purpose, and where two people, separated by an impossible chasm, can begin to see each other as man. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, they must leave everything behind and run together. During their travels will bring together what Washington and Christopher, they tear it apart, leaving Washington continues over the world go in search of his true self.strekt across the Caribbean to the frozen far north, from London to Morocco and Black Washington's story of self-discovery and betrayal, of love and redemption, and of a world destroyed and made whole again.

Tightrope
by Amanda Quick

Former trapeze artist Amalie Vaughn moved to Burning Cove to reinvent herself, but things aren't going well. After devoting her entire inheritance to a mansion with the intention of turning it into a bed and breakfast, she finds out too late that the villa has been cursed. When the first guest, Dr. Norman Pickwell, is murdered by his robot invention during a sold-out demonstration, rumors spread that the curse is real. In the chaotic aftermath of the spectacle, Amalie watches as a stranger disappears from the audience behind the curtain. When Matthias Jones reappears, he puts a gun in a hidden holster. It seems the gossip swirling around him is true - Matthias apparently has connections to the criminal underworld. Matthias is on the trail of a groundbreaking cipher machine prototype. He suspects that Pickwell stole the device and intended to sell it. But now Pickwell is dead and the machine is gone. When Matthias's investigation leads him to Amalie's front door, the attraction between them is strong, but she knows it's dangerous too. Amalie and Matthias have to decide if they can trust each other and the passion that unites them, because time is running out.

                    

The Nickel Boys
by Colson Whitehead

As the civil rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in secluded Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: he is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents but kept on the right path by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in Jim Crow South in the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is condemned to a youth reform called the Nickel Academy, whose mission says it provides "physical, intellectual, and moral training" so that the delinquent boys under their care can become "honorable and honest men." In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque room of horrors where the sadistic staff beat and sexually assault the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out'. Amazed to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to the resounding claim made by Dr. King: Throw us in jail and we'll still love you. His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to plan and avoid problems. The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose consequences will reverberate over the decades. Shaped in the melting pot of evil that Jim Crow has wrought, the fate of the boys will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy. Based on the real story of a Florida reform school that has operated for a hundred and eleven years and has twisted the lives of thousands of children. The Nickel Boys is a devastating, passionate story that features a great American novelist writing at the height of his strength. .

The Giver of Stars
by Jojo Moyes

Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve in the hope of escaping her suffocating life in England. But the small town of Kentucky quickly turns out to be equally claustrophobic, especially when she lives with her overbearing father-in-law. So when a team of women is called to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt's new traveling library, Alice enthusiastically subscribes. The leader, and soon Alice's greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who has never asked a man for permission. They will be joined by three other special women who will be known as the Packhorse Librarians of Kentucky. What happens to them - and the men they love - becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. These heroic women refuse to be intimidated by men or by convention. And while they face all kinds of dangers in a landscape that is sometimes breathtakingly beautiful, sometimes cruel, they are committed to their work: bringing books to people who have never had one, arming them with facts that will change their lives. Based on a true story rooted in America's past, The Giver of Stars is unmatched in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, captivating, it is destined to become a modern classic - a richly rewarding novel about the friendship of women, about true love and about what happens when we reach beyond our reach for the great beyond.

Spy
by Danielle Steel

At 18, Alexandra Wickham is presented to King George V and Queen Mary in a beautiful white lace and satin dress ordered by her mother in Paris. With her delicate blonde appearance, she is a stunning beauty that seems destined for a privileged life. But fate, a world war and her own quietly rebellious personality lead her on a different path. In 1939 Europe was on fire and England was at war. From her home in idyllic Hampshire, Alex goes to London to volunteer at the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. But she has skills that will attract the attention of another branch of the service. She is fluent in French and German and would be the perfect secret agent. Within a year, Alex shocks her family in pants and bright red lipstick. They should never know about the work she is doing - no one should know, even the pilot she falls in love with. While her country and loved ones pay the dire price of war, Alex learns the art of spying, leading to life and death missions behind enemy lines and a long career as a spy in exotic places and historic times. Spy follows Alex's extraordinary adventures in World War II and beyond in India, Pakistan, Morocco, Hong Kong, Moscow and Washington, DC, as her husband, Richard, enters the Foreign Service and both witness a rapidly changing world of postal war in the Cold War. She lives on the edge, with a secret she must always keep hidden.

The Chelsea Girls
by Fiona Davis

From its dramatic brick facade to its spiral staircase dripping with art, the Chelsea Hotel has long been New York City's creative oasis for the many artists, writers, musicians, actors, filmmakers and poets who make it home - a playwright Hazel Riley and actress Maxine Mead are determined to use it to their advantage. Yet they soon discover that the biggest obstacle to getting a show on Broadway has nothing to do with their art, but everything to do with politics. A Red Scare is sweeping through America and Senator Joseph McCarthy has begun a witch hunt for Communists, targeting those in the entertainment industry. As the pressure builds to name names, it is more than Hazel and Maxine's Broadway dreams that can suffer as they grapple with the dire consequences, as well as their livelihoods, their friendship, and even their freedom. the 1960s, The Chelsea Girls, deftly stretching back the curtain to the desperate political pressure of McCarthyism, the complicated bonds of female friendship and the siren call of the uninhibited Chelsea Hotel.

The Water Dancer
by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Young Hiram Walker was born into slavery. When his mother was sold, Hiram was stripped of all memory of her - but he took on a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram nearly drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush of death creates an urgency in Hiram and a daring plan: escape from the only house he's ever known. Thus begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia's proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he serves in the underground war between slave traders and enslaved people, Hiram remains determined to save the family he left behind. This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men and children - the violent and erratic separation of families - and the war they waged simply to make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of the most exciting thinkers and writers of the moment, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work restoring the humanity of those whose everything was stolen

White Chrysanthemum
by Mary Lynn Bracht

Korea, 1943. Hana has lived under Japanese occupation all her life. As haenyeo, a female diver of the sea, she enjoys an independence that few other Koreans can claim. Until the day when Hana saves her younger sister from a Japanese soldier and is picked up herself and transported to Manchuria. There she is forced to become a 'comfort woman' in a Japanese military brothel. But haenyeo are women of power and strength. She will find her way home. South Korea, 2011. Emi has been trying to forget her sister's sacrifice for over sixty years, but she must face the past to discover peace. Given the healing of her children and her country, can Emi go beyond the legacy of the war to find forgiveness? Thrilling, hopeful and ultimately redeeming, White Chrysanthemum tells a story of two sisters whose love for each other is strong enough to triumph over the grim evils of war.

The Secrets We Kept
by Lara Prescott

At the height of the Cold War, two secretaries are taken from the typing pool at the CIA and given the assignment of a lifetime. Their mission: to smuggle Dr. Zhivago out of the USSR, where no one dares to publish it, and to help Pasternak's magnum opus get around the world. Glamorous and sophisticated Sally Forrester is a seasoned spy who has honed her knack for deception around the world - using her magnetism and charm to pry secrets from powerful men. A complete novice, Irina quickly learns under Sally's tutelage how to mix, drop, and create invisibly classified ferry documents. The Secrets We Kept combines a legendary literary love story - the decades-long affair between Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who was sent to the Gulag and inspired Zhivago's heroine, Lara - with a story about two women empowered to lead lives of extraordinary intrigue and risk. From Pasternak's estate outside Moscow to the atrocities of the Gulag, from Washington, DC to Paris and Milan, The Secrets We Kept captures a turning point in the history of literature - told with tremendous emotional intensity and captivating historical detail. And at the heart of this unforgettable debut is the powerful belief that a work of art can change the world.

Inland
by Téa Obreht 

In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives unfold. Nora is a staunch frontier woman who awaits the return of the men in her life - her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her eldest sons, who have disappeared after an explosive fight. Nora is biding her time with her youngest son, who is convinced that a mysterious beast is stalking the land around their house. Meanwhile, Lurie is a former outlaw and a man haunted by ghosts. He sees lost souls wanting something from him, and he finds reprieve from their desire in an unexpected relationship that inspires a memorable expedition across the West. The way Lurie's deadly journey finally converges with Nora's plight is the surprise and suspense of this brilliant novel. Mythical, lyrical and overwhelming, Inland is rooted in true but little-known history. It showcases all of Téa Obreht's talents as a writer, while undermining and rethinking the myths of the American West, making them fully - and unforgettable - her own.

Before We Were Yours
by Lisa Wingate

Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings lead a magical life aboard their family's shantyboat on the Mississippi. But when their dad has to take their mom to the hospital on a stormy night, Rill stays in charge - until strangers arrive. The Foss children are torn from everything known and thrown into a Tennessee Children's Home Society orphanage, and Foss's children are sure they will soon be returned to their parents - but they soon realize the dark truth . At the mercy of the facility's cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty. Aiken, South Carolina, Present. Born of wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father get through a health crisis, a chance meeting leaves her with uncomfortable questions and forces her to take a journey through her family's long-hidden history, on a path that will eventually lead to destruction or destruction. Salvation. . Based on one of America's most infamous real-life scandals - in which Georgia Tann, director of an adoption organization in Memphis, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families across the country - Lisa Wingate's compelling, moving and ultimately uplifting story reminds us how although the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.

Flight of the Sparrow
by Amy Belding Brown

Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1676. Even before Mary Rowlandson was captured by Native Americans on a winter day of violence and terror, she was at times in conflict with her rigid Puritan community. Now her house has been destroyed, her children have been lost to her, she has been sold to the service of a powerful female tribe leader, a pawn in the ongoing bloody battle between English settlers and native people. Mary fights cold, hunger and exhaustion and witnesses poignant cruelty as well as unexpected kindness. To her confused surprise, she is attracted to the open and straightforward way of life of her captors, a feeling made more complicated by her attraction to a generous, protective English-speaking native language known as James Printer. All her life, Mary learned to fear God, to submit to her husband, and to loathe the Indians. Now that she's lived on the other side of the forest, she's starting to question the edicts that led her, torn between the life she knew and the wisdom the natives showed her. Based on Mary Rowlandson's compelling true story, Flight of the Sparrow is an evocative tale that takes the reader back to a little-known time in early America and explores the real meanings of freedom, belief and acceptance.

Killing Commendatore
by Haruki Murakami

When a portrait painter in his thirties is abandoned by his wife, he finds himself alone in the mountain home of a world-famous artist. One day the young painter hears a noise from the attic, and upon investigation he discovers a painting he has never shown before. By unearthing this hidden work of art, he inadvertently opens a circle of mysterious circumstances; and to top it off, he must take a perilous journey to an underworld that only Haruki Murakami can conjure. A tour de force of love and loneliness, war and art, Killing Commendatore is a stunning work of imagination by one of our greatest writers.

Place Called Freedom
by Ken Follett

Scotland, 1766. Condemned to a life of misery in the brutal coal mines, twenty-one-year-old Mack McAsh is hungry for escape. His only ally: the beautiful, high-born Lizzie Hallim, trapped in her own kind of hell. Although separated by politics and position, these two restless young people are bound by their passionate search for a place called freedom. From the teeming streets of London to the hellish hold of a slave ship to a sprawling plantation in Virginia, Ken Follett's turbulent, unforgettable novel of freedom and revolution brings together a vibrant cast of heroes and villains, lovers and rebels, hypocrites and infernal owners - all propelled by destiny toward an epic battle that will change their lives forever.

Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi

Ghana, eighteenth century: two half-sisters are born in different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and live a comfortable life in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured during an attack on her village, locked up in the same castle and sold into slavery. Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants for eight generations, from the Gold Coast to the Mississippi plantations, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasi's extraordinary novel highlights the troubled legacy of slavery for both those who were taken and those who stayed - and shows how the memory of captivity is etched into the soul of our nation.

Queen Hereafter
by Susan Fraser King

Shipwrecked on the Scottish coast, a young Saxon princess and her family - including the banned Edgar of England - question the shrine of warrior king Malcolm Canmore, who cleverly sees the political advantage. He promises to help Edgar and the Saxon cause in exchange for the hand of Edgar's sister, Margaret, in the marriage. Margaret, a foreign queen in a foreign land, adapts to life among the barbaric Scots, carries princes and transforms the fierce warrior Malcolm into a sophisticated ruler. But even when the King and Queen build a passionate and impetuous partnership, the Scots distrust her. When her husband takes Eve, a Celtic bard, to court as a hostage for the formidable Lady Macbeth's good behavior, Margaret expects trouble. Instead, an unlikely friendship grows between the queen and her bard, although one has a wild Celtic character and the other follows the exacting path of obligations. Torn between loyalty old and new, Eve is bound by a vow to betray the king and his Saxon queen. Soon imprisoned and charged with witchcraft and treason, Eve learns that Queen Margaret - advised by the enraged king and his powerful priests - will decide her fate and that of her kinsman Lady Macbeth. But can the proud queen forgive such deep treachery? Immaculately researched, a dramatic page turner, Queen Her After is an unforgettable tale of shifting alliances and the tension between fear and trust as a young woman makes her way in a dangerous world.

A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles.

He cannot leave his hotel. You don't want that. From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civilitycompelling - a novel about a man assigned to spend the rest of his life in a luxury hotel. In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov was considered an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal and sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. An indomitable man of erudition and humor, Rostov has never worked a day of his life and is now forced to live in an attic with some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history taking place outside the hotel doors. Unexpectedly, his limited circumstances offer him access to a much wider world of emotional discoveries. Full of humor, a dazzling cast of characters and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this one-of-a-kind novel casts a spell on the count's pursuit of a deeper understanding of what it means to be a to be purposeful man.

The Stars Are Fire
by Anita Shreve

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Weight of Water and The Pilot's Wife (a selection from Oprah's Book Club): an extraordinarily thrilling new novel about an extraordinary young woman who is put to the test by a disastrous event. about the true story of the greatest fire in Maine history In October 1947, Grace Holland experiences two simultaneous droughts. An unusually hot, dry summer has turned the state of Maine into a tinderbox, and Grace and her husband, Gene, have fallen out of love and hardly speak. Five months pregnant and caring for two toddlers, Grace has resigned herself to a life of loneliness and household chores. One night she wakes up to discover forest fires raging along the coast, closer and closer to her home. Forced to take her children into the ocean to escape the flames, Grace watches helplessly as everything she knows burns to the ground. By morning, her life has changed forever: she is homeless, penniless, waiting for the news of her husband's fate, and she faces an uncertain future in a city that no longer exists. With courage and stoicism, Grace overcomes a devastating loss and through the smoke is able to glimpse the opportunity to rewrite her own story.

The Book Thief (Anniversary Edition)
by Markus Zusak

When death has a story to tell, you listen. It's 1939. Nazi Germany. The country holds its breath. Death has never been so busy, and will continue to be busier. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich who scrapes herself a meager existence by stealing when she comes across something she can't resist: books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she teaches her to read stolen books and shares them with her neighbors during bombings and with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. Award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of beautifully crafted writings that burn with intensity I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

New York: The Novel
by Edward Rutherfurd

Edward Rutherfurd celebrates America's greatest city in a rich, compelling saga that interweaves stories of rich and poor families, native-born and immigrants - a cast of fictional and true characters whose fates rise and fall and increases again with the fortune of the city. From this intimate perspective, we see New York's humble beginnings as a small Indian fishing village, the arrival of Dutch and British merchants, the Revolutionary War, the city's emergence as a major trading and financial center, the convulsions of the Civil War, the excesses of the gilded age, the explosion of immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the trials of World War II, New York's near-demise in the 1970s and its vibrant rebirth in the 1990s , and the assault on the World Trade Center. An exciting mix of struggle, romance, family struggle and personal triumphs and New York: The Novel gloriously captures the quest for freedom and opportunity at the heart of our nation's history.

Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders

Feb 1862. The Civil War is less than a year old. The fighting has begun in earnest and the nation is beginning to realize that a long, bloody battle awaits. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, is upstairs in the White House, seriously ill. Within days, despite predictions of recovery, Willie dies and is buried in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," said the president at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy's body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable tale of family love and loss that breaks away from its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm that is both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds herself in a strange purgatory where spirits mingle, complain, pity, argue, and perform bizarre penances. Within this transitional state - called the bardo in Tibetan tradition - a monumental battle breaks out over the soul of young Willie. Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally bold, generous-minded, deeply involved in matters of the heart, it testifies to fiction's ability to speak honestly and forcefully about the things that really matter. Saunders has invented an exciting new form that uses a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?

Secrets of a Charmed Life
by Susan Meissner

Current day, Oxford, England. Eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, young American scholar Kendra Van Zant interviews Isabel McFarland just as the elderly woman is ready to reveal secrets about the war she's been waging for decades ... starting with who it really is. What Kendra receives from Isabel is both a gift and a burden - one that will test her conviction and her heart. 1940, England. As Hitler wages an unprecedented war against the civilian population of London, hundreds of thousands of children are being evacuated to foster homes in the countryside. But even as 15-year-old Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister Julia seek refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage, Emmy's burning ambition to return to the city and an apprentice to a fashion designer pits her against Julia's deep need for the presence of her sister. Just as the Luftwaffe carries out its terrible destruction, the sisters are brutally separated and their lives transformed ...

The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead's

Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. She is an outcast even among her fellow Africans, and she is on the eve of being a woman - where more pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. 

Outlander
door Diana Gabaldon

the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Their stories cross continents—from New York to Paris, Germany, and Poland—as Caroline and Kasia strive to bring justice to those whom history has forgotten.

Love and Ruin
by Paula McLain

In 1937, twenty-eight-year-old Martha Gellhorn travels alone to Madrid to report on the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War and becomes drawn to the stories of ordinary people caught in the devastating conflict. It's her chance to prove herself a worthy journalist in a field dominated by men. There she also finds herself unexpectedly—and unwillingly—falling in love with Ernest Hemingway, a man on his way to becoming a legend. On the eve of World War II, and set against the turbulent backdrops of Madrid and Cuba, Martha and Ernest's relationship and careers ignite. But when Ernest publishes the biggest literary success of his career, For Whom the Bell Tolls, they are no longer equals, and Martha must forge a path as her own woman and writer. Heralded by Ann Patchett as “the new star of historical fiction,” Paula McLain brings Gellhorn's story richly to life and captures her as a heroine for the ages: a woman who will risk absolutely everything to find her own voice.

I Was Anastasia
by Ariel Lawhon

Countless others have rendered their verdict. Now it is your turn. Russia, July 17, 1918: Under direct orders from Vladimir Lenin, Bolshevik secret police force Anastasia Romanov, along with the entire imperial family, into a damp basement in Siberia, where they face a merciless firing squad. None survive. At least that is what the executioners have always claimed. Germany, February 17, 1920: A young woman bearing an uncanny resemblance to Anastasia Romanov is pulled shivering and senseless from a canal. Refusing to explain her presence in the freezing water or even acknowledge her rescuers, she is taken to the hospital where an examination reveals that her body is riddled with countless horrific scars. When she finally does speak, this frightened, mysterious young woman claims to be the Russian grand duchess. As rumors begin to circulate through European society that the youngest Romanov daughter has survived the massacre at Ekaterinburg, old enemies and new threats are awakened. The question of who Anna Anderson is and what actually happened to Anastasia Romanov spans fifty years and touches three continents. This thrilling saga is every bit as moving and momentous as it is harrowing and twisted.

We Were the Lucky Ones
by Georgia Hunter

It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety. As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere. An extraordinary, propulsive novel, We Were the Lucky Ones demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century's darkest moment, the human spirit can endure and even thrive.

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir
by Jennifer Ryan

As England becomes enmeshed in the early days of World War II and the men are away fighting, the women of Chilbury village forge an uncommon bond. They defy the Vicar's stuffy edict to close the choir and instead “carry on singing,” resurrecting themselves as the Chilbury Ladies' Choir. We come to know the home-front struggles of five unforgettable choir members: a timid widow devastated when her only son goes to fight; the older daughter of a local scion drawn to a mysterious artist; her younger sister pining over an impossible crush; a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia hiding a family secret; and a conniving midwife plotting to outrun her seedy past. An enchanting ensemble story that shuttles from village intrigue to romance to the heartbreaking matters of life and death, Jennifer Ryan's debut novel thrillingly illuminates the true strength of the women on the home front in a village of indomitable spirit.