The Time Traveler Recommendations
Winter Book Releases 2025-2026
The Time Traveler knows that the best journeys don’t need a passport — just a great historical novel. This winter’s releases sweep readers from grand estates to wartime romances, offering rich detail, emotional depth, and timeless stories that melt away the modern world.
february Books:
Fireflies in Winter
by Eleanor Shearer
A gripping novel of two young women fighting for survival on the edge of the wilderness, and the love that simultaneously sustains them and threatens their very existence, from the author of the Good Morning America Book Club pick River Sing Me Home.
Nova Scotia, 1796. Cora, an orphan newly arrived from Jamaica, has never felt cold like this. In the depths of winter, everyone in her community huddles together in their homes to keep warm. So when she sees a shadow slipping through the trees, Cora thinks her eyes are deceiving her...until she creeps out into the moonlight and finds the tracks in the snow.
Agnes is in hiding. On the run from her former life, she has learned what it takes to survive alone in the wilderness. But she can afford no mistakes. When she first spies the young woman in the woods, she is afraid. Yet Cora is fearless, and their paths are destined to cross.
White River Crossing
by Ian McGuire
A breathtaking and cinematic novel about the lust for gold and its bloody consequences, set in the unforgiving landscape of the sub-Arctic Canadian wilderness, from the acclaimed author of The North Water
A ragged fur peddler arrives at a remote outpost of the Hudson Bay Company in the winter of 1766 with a lump of gold, claiming that there is plenty more like it further north at a place called Ox Lake. The outpost's chief factor, Magnus Norton, dreams of instant riches and launches a secret and perilous expedition to find the treasure and bring it back.
Led by a family of native guides, the party of prospectors includes Norton's brutish deputy, John Shaw, and Thomas Hearn, the insular and intellectual first mate from the factory's whaling sloop. During their long journey north, Shaw's callousness and arrogance lead him to commit an act of sexual violence whose disastrous consequences will only fully emerge once they reach their final destination. There, amidst the bleak beauty of the Barren Grounds, as Norton's carefully crafted plans begin to fall apart and the brutal arctic winter starts to descend, Hearn is forced to make a choice that will define his character and determine his future forever.
The Halifax Hellions
by Alexandra Vasti
From USA Today bestselling author Alexandra Vasti comes The Halifax Hellions: a pair of sexy, hilarious romps in which the most scandalous ladies in London finally meet their match.
From the day of their debut, when Matilda smoked a cheroot and Margo tied a cherry stem in a knot with her tongue, the Halifax twins have flouted convention at every turn. But when Matilda runs off with the dangerous Marquess of Ashford--who has every reason to hate her--she may have gone a bit too far.
Determined to stop Matilda's inexplicable elopement, her sister Margo turns to her oldest friend for help: because if anyone can get her to Scotland in time, it's starchy solicitor Henry Mortimer. But the road to Scotland is paved with secrets. Beneath his buttoned-up exterior, Henry is ardently, wildly, miserably in love with Margo. And Matilda and Ashford's relationship too may not be quite what it seems.
The Manual for Good Wives
by Lola Jaye
'An unforgettable voice within a breathtaking story about love, lineage, and the intergenerational effect of bravery in the face of misfortune' - Jessica George, author of Divers Book Award winning My Name is Maame
Everything about Adeline Copplefield is a lie . . .
To the world Mrs Copplefield is the epitome of Victorian propriety: an exemplary society lady who writes a weekly column advising young ladies on how to be better wives.
Only Adeline has never been a good wife or mother; she has no claim to the Copplefield name, nor is she an English lady . . .
Book of Forbidden Words
by Louise Fein
"Devotees of rich historical fiction and contemporary social discourse alike will be enthralled."
--Booklist, starred review
From bestselling author Louise Fein comes a new historical novel set in a world of banned books and censorship, in which an encrypted manuscript unleashes a chain of consequences across 400 years, perfect for fans of Weyward and The Briar Club.
1552, PARIS: The printing press is quickly spreading new ideas across Europe, threatening the power of church and state and unleashing a wave of book burning and heretic hunting. When frightened ex-nun Lysbette Angiers arrives at Charlotte Guillard's famous printing shop with her manuscript, neither woman knows just how far the powerful elite will go to prevent the spread of Lysbette's audacious ideas.
1952, NEW YORK: Milly Bennett is a lonely housewife struggling to find her way in her new neighborhood amidst the paranoid clamors of McCarthy's America. She finds her life taking an unexpected turn when a relic from her past presents her with a 400-year-old manuscript to decipher, pulling her into a vortex of danger that threatens to shatter her world.
january picks:
Meet the Newmans
by Jennifer Niven
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Niven, a novel about America's favorite TV family, whose perfect façade cracks, for fans of Lessons in Chemistry and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
"I loved Meet the Newmans!" --Judy Blume, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"Warm, witty, and wise." --Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author
For two decades, Del and Dinah Newman and their sons, Guy and Shep, have ruled television as America's Favorite Family. Millions of viewers tune in every week to watch them play flawless, black-and-white versions of themselves. But now it's 1964, and the Newmans' idealized apple-pie perfection suddenly feels woefully out of touch. Ratings are in free fall, as are the Newmans themselves. Del is keeping an explosive secret from his wife, and Dinah is slowly going numb--literally. Steady, stable Guy is hiding the truth about his love life, and the charmed luck of rock 'n roll idol Shep may have finally run out.
Call Me Ishmaelle
by Xiaolu Guo
A KIRKUS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
"A propulsive powerhouse of a read."--Marie Claire (UK)
"Ambitious, brave, and strange."--Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan
From the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author, a feminist reimagining of Herman Melville's classic Moby-Dick through the eyes of one inimitable woman and a diverse, swashbuckling crew
I must work on a ship as a man . . . I must find freedom on the seas.
1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York.
When We Were Brilliant
by Lynn Cullen
They were an unlikely pair--a blond bombshell and a photographer determined to be taken seriously--but Marilyn Monroe and Eve Arnold would make a deal that would change their lives in this dazzling new novel from the national bestselling author of Mrs. Poe and The Woman with the Cure.
In 1952, Norma Jeane Baker follows documentary photographer Eve Arnold into a powder room on the night they first meet. She has a proposition for her. Norma Jeane created Marilyn Monroe to be photographed, and she wants Eve to do it. Eve is better than anyone she's seen at revealing a person's inner truth. Together they can help each other. Together, she says, they can make something brilliant.
The Bookbinder's Secret
by A D Bell
Every book tells a story. This one tells a secret.
A young bookbinder begins a hunt for the truth when a confession hidden beneath the binding of a burned book reveals a story of forbidden love, lost fortune, and murder.
Lilian ("Lily") Delaney, apprentice to a master bookbinder in Oxford in 1901, chafes at the confines of her life. She is trapped between the oppressiveness of her father's failing bookshop and still being an apprentice in a man's profession. But when she's given a burned book during a visit to a collector, she finds, hidden beneath the binding, a fifty-year-old letter speaking of love, fortune, and murder.
Rules of the Heart
by Janice Hadlow
A beautifully evocative historical novel about the perils of all-consuming love, inspired by a real-life eighteenth-century love affair, from the bestselling author of The Other Bennet Sister
"When I love at all, it is with my whole soul--my heart must be torn to pieces before it can forget or resign the objects of its affections."
England, 1794. Now in her thirties, Lady Harriet Bessborough, already the veteran of several liaisons, finds herself pursued by a much younger man. This isn't unusual in her circle, where married women often take younger lovers. No one minds much, provided they follow the rules of the game: Don't embarrass your husband, maintain complete discretion at all times, and never ever make the mistake of falling in love.
All the Little Houses
by May Cobb
"May Cobb's most explosive book yet. And trust me, that's saying a lot." -- Jeneva Rose
"Nobody does explosive and twisted like May Cobb does it." --Lisa Jewell
Adults can behave badly too...
It's the mid-1980s in the tiny town of Longview, Texas. Nellie Anderson, the beautiful daughter of the Anderson family dynasty, has burst onto the scene. She always gets what she wants. What she can't get for herself... well, that's what her mother is for. Because Charleigh Andersen, blond, beautiful, and ruthlessly cunning, remembers all too well having to claw her way to the top. When she was coming of age on the poor side of East Texas, she was a loser, an outcast, humiliated, and shunned by the in-crowd, whose approval she'd so desperately thirsted for. When a prairie-kissed family moves to town, all trad wife, woodworking dad, wholesome daughter vibes, Charleigh's entire self-made social empire threatens to crumble.
Who will be left standing when the dust settles?
From the author of The Hunting Wives comes a deliciously wicked new thriller about mean girls, mean moms, and the delicious secrets inside all the little houses.
Skylark
by Paula McLain
The New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Wife weaves a mesmerizing tale of Paris above and below--where a woman's quest for artistic freedom in 1664 intertwines with a doctor's dangerous mission during the German occupation in the 1940s, revealing a story of courage and resistance that transcends time.
1664: Alouette Voland is the daughter of a master dyer at the famed Gobelin Tapestry Works, who secretly dreams of escaping her circumstances and creating her own masterpiece. When her father is unjustly imprisoned, Alouette's efforts to save him lead to her own confinement in the notorious Salpêtrière asylum, where thousands of women are held captive and cruelly treated. But within its grim walls, she discovers a small group of brave allies, and the possibility of a life bigger than she ever imagined.
1939: Kristof Larson is a medical student beginning his psychiatric residency in Paris, whose neighbors on the Rue de Gobelins are a Jewish family who have fled Poland. When Nazi forces descend on the city, Kristof becomes their only hope for survival, even as his work as a doctor is jeopardized.
December Picks:
Between Good and Evil
by Rochelle Alers
In the tradition of Studs Lonigan and A Stone for Danny Fisher, a transporting historical saga about three young men coming-of-age on New York City's rapidly changing, vibrant, challenging, sometimes heartless Upper West Side as they walk a fine line between right and wrong amid the turbulence and scandals of the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
Kenny, Frankie, Ray. For these best friends, life on the Upper West Side during the upheaval of the 1960s showed undreamed-of possibilities--and temptations. Moved by visionaries like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcom X, Kenny risks the draft as he plunges into civil rights activism. With surprising business savvy, Frankie expands his grandfather's Harlem underworld empire to feed the growing demand for drugs--and his hunger to be the city's biggest kingpin. Ray dreams of being a doctor, but his near-addictive desires lead him to a near-fatal confrontation . . . and a different sort of healing.
Huguette
by Cara Black
In the lawlessness of post-World War II France, a resilient young woman fights to survive and make a living, no matter the cost--from the New York Times bestselling author of Three Hours in Paris and the Aimée Leduc series
After Libération, spring 1945: Seventeen-year-old Huguette Faure is a survivor. The war has taken everything from her--both her parents and her sense of safety. Now, pregnant and on the lam, she cannot return to her childhood home in Paris. Forced to reinvent herself, she must outrun her father's enemies, who want her dead. After narrowly avoiding jail time--thanks to the help of a kindhearted police officer named Claude Leduc--Huguette lands a job assisting a legendary film director. As her role develops from helping him with chores to cooking his books, she sees an opportunity to break free from the ghosts of her past once and for all.
My Fair Frauds
by Lee Kelly - Jennifer Thorne
A high society fraud and a scrappy swindler team up to take down Gilded Age New York in this tale of intrigue, drama, and female friendship.
The Grand Duchess Marie Charlotte Antonie of Würrtemberg--a turmoil-plagued Germanic nation with closely guarded emerald mines--has taken Gilded Age high society by storm. Little does the upper crust know that Würrtemberg's mines are a sham and its "deposed duchess" is actually a con woman named Alice, a fallen woman out for revenge against the five ruthless robber barons who destroyed her father and left her family in shambles.
Alice's long investment con finally clicks into place when she meets a scrappy magician's assistant named Cora, a drifter who has lofty aspirations of her own, a malleable young lady who proves the perfect debutante pawn to lure in Alice's final, and otherwise unattainable, target.
Song of Ancient Lovers
by Laura Restrepo - Caro de Robertis
Award-winning Colombian author Laura Restrepo weaves contemporary themes and ancient myth in this story of star-crossed lovers in a world on the brink of collapse.
Retelling the mythical love story between the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon in the refugee camps of the present day, Song of Ancient Lovers is a sublime ode to love and desire as forces shaping human history, with power that rivals forces of destruction.