historical fiction

‘Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II’ by Adam Gidwitz is both charming and chilling

/ Pamela Kramer

Adam Gidwitz is a much loved children’s author whose fabulous tales have taken readers young and old from Grimm’s fairy tales (“A Tale Dark and Grimm“) to the Inquisition (“The Inquisitor’s Tale“) and now to WWII in “Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II.” This historical fiction also contains Gidwitz’s trademark fantasy twist with two mythical creatures who accompany main character Max as he travels from Berlin to London as part of the Kindertransport, which took Jewish children from Germany to countries where they stayed in foster homes until the end of the war.

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Percival Everett: “James,” Jim, and by the way, Huckleberry Finn

/ Pamela Kramer

Percival Everett’s brilliant novel, “James,” is a significant achievement, almost as important, perhaps, for what it is not, as much as for what it certainly is. It is not simply a “reimagining” of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Nor is it simply an “updating” or “retelling” of Twain’s magnificent contribution to American literature. It is, instead, a moving, fiery, anger-inducing, sad, and occasionally humorous account of a slave in 1860 America. That slave, Jim, is a friend of a semi-wild fourteen- or fifteen-year-old ultra-country boy named Huck.

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‘The Sicilian Inheritance’ by Jo Piazza is a thoughtful novel about culture, family, and how women survive

/ Pamela Kramer

I must admit, at the beginning I didn’t much like the main character in “The Sicilian Inheritance.” When I started reading Jo Piazza’s newest novel about a woman who was a butcher, a restaurateur, a mother, and who apparently wasn’t really good at several of those things, I didn’t know how I would connect with her and care about her story. But that might be part of the message that this brilliant novel imparts: that women don’t need to be best friends or even like each other much to help and support each other in times of need.

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‘The Murder of Mr. Ma’ by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan is a period mystery

/ Pamela Kramer

As fascinating as the murder mystery “The Murder of Mr. Ma” is, the afterward and acknowledgments at the end are almost, but certainly not completely, as intriguing as the actual mystery itself. Cowritten by John Shen Yen Nee and SJ Rozan, this series opener introduces two Chinese men, Lao She and Judge Dee Ren Jie, who are actual historic figures from China’s past. These two men collaborate to investigate the murder of a Chinese man, which death is quickly multiplied when more Chinese men, all of whom knew each other, are found murdered by the same weapon, an unusual butterfly sword.

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‘The Duchess’ is the second in ‘The Scandalous Ladies of London’ series by Sophie Jordan

/ Pamela Kramer

Unlike most historical romance novels, which feature young innocent debutantes and more mature males, Sophie Jordan created “The Scandalous Ladies of London,” this Regency romance series to feature mature women. The main characters in these novels are women who are either the mothers of debutantes or of an age in which they could be mothers to the debutantes. These are not young ingenues, but rather seasoned, experienced women who may have been married but have not had the joy of a loving relationship. While they are not in the first blush of youth, their beauty has grown with age, like a fine wine.

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‘How to Solve Your Own Murder’ by Kristen Perrin is a completely unique and thrilling mystery

/ Pamela Kramer

From the first page of “How to Solve Your Own Mystery,” I was hooked. Frances and her two best friends go to a fair in their small, picturesque town in the English countryside. An unusual fortune foretold at the fair by a “fortune teller” about Frances’s eventual murder changes the trajectory of young Frances’s life. She becomes obsessed with her fortune and determined to figure out who wants to murder her. This obsession lasts her whole life until, in her seventies, she is, in fact, murdered.

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‘The Berlin Letters’ by Katherine Reay is a powerful, gritty Cold War novel

/ Pamela Kramer

In this gripping novel, “The Berlin Letters,” set during the Cold War, author Katherine Reay presents two narratives and two timelines, as main character Luisa, a CIA code breaker, learns about a group of letters, referred to as the ‘Berlin letters.’ When she’s asked to help decode one, she realizes that it’s similar to a letter she saw her grandfather receive when she was a child. Her grandparents brought their daughter Alice and Luisa from Berlin to the US after the Berlin Wall went up. They won’t talk much about life in Germany, and Luisa knows that there are secrets they don’t share with her.

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‘The Phoenix Crown’ by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang is a superb piece of historical fiction

/ Pamela Kramer

What Kate Quinn and Janie Chang have accomplished in their new historical fiction, “The Phoenix Crown,” is phenomenal. They have combined fictional female characters and real people and real events to create a gripping story that revolves around the Great Earthquake of San Francisco in 1906. In fact, the first part of the story, Act 1, provides dates, days, hours, and minutes as chapter headings until the earthquake hits. The first chapter is set on April 4, 1906, thirteen days, fourteen hours, fifty-two minutes before the San Francisco earthquake, as Gemma Garland, an opera singer, arrives in San Francisco with her bird, Toscanini.

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‘The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store’ by James McBride is a beautifully written novel about good and evil and the magic of community

/ Pamela Kramer

James McBride’s backstory–his mother was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and his father was a Black minister–makes his new novel, “The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store” an authentic historical fiction that showcases the outcast communities of Blacks and Jews in the rural American Midwest. There are, in fact, many, many characters in this complex story wherein we see reflections of the present in a memorable tale of good and evil. We do see that in the long run, good mostly triumphs over evil. But we also see that while much has changed since the early part of the last century, when this novel is set, and while we think of ourselves and our modern technology, not enough has really changed. And McBride makes that abundantly clear with his vivid prose and his lovely metaphor.

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‘Mockingbird Summer’ by Lynda Rutledge is about small town Texas in 1964

/ Pamela Kramer

Small town Texas in the summer of 1964 is the setting in “Mockingbird Summer” by Lynda Rutledge. During this summer, we see a town on the cusp of change, as its Southside (of the tracks) and Northside neighborhoods and implicit Jim Crow laws butt heads with the Civil Rights Era. We see most of the events through the eyes of Kathryn Kay Corcoran, or Corky as she is known to her friends. Corky lives with her parents, her brother, and their much-loved pets. Both Roy Rogers, a large mixed-breed dog, and Goldy, their senior horse, become important to the story, but especially Roy Rogers, whose unquestioning loyalty and instincts are highlights throughout the story.

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‘The Frozen River’ by Ariel Lawhon is a gripping historical fiction novel

/ Pamela Kramer

In her latest novel “The Frozen River,” Ariel Lawhon continues writing historical fiction based on the lives of real women, women who often made an important contribution to history. Martha Ballard, the main character, is a midwife, and the story takes place shortly after the Revolutionary War in Maine, over a six-month period when the Kennebec River, the frozen river of the title, is iced over. The river is important in the story. Martha and her family live on the river, and a mill her husband built is his livelihood. When the river freezes, so does the transportation of logs downriver. Winter is a time for repairs and introspection.

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‘The Curse of Penryth Hall’ by Jess Armstrong is a wonderful debut gothic mystery

/ Pamela Kramer

Jess Armstrong’s debut novel, “The Curse of Penryth Hall,” is a beautifully done Gothic mystery that is set in Cornwall in the post-WWI period. The main character is Ruby Vaughn, a woman who has experienced much of life partially as a result of being the pampered daughter of a wealthy New Yorker and volunteering in France in the war effort, tending to sick and dying soldiers. Now she lives with an octogenarian, Owen, and works for him in his antiquarian bookstore. They aren’t related, but Owen has come to treat her as a daughter—or perhaps granddaughter—and they care for each other in a very non-demonstrative British manner.

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