Step into the past this fall with our collection of the latest historical fiction new release books. Turn the page and watch history comes alive against a backdrop of golden autumn leaves and transportive settings. For our Time Traveler Reader Type, autumn is the perfect season to journey across centuries, explore sweeping historical dramas and experience classical romance.
Browse our list of historical fiction new release books, featuring vivid details, rich historical backdrops and unforgettable drama. Packed with masterful new titles from acclaimed authors like Alice Hoffman, Kate Morton, Philippa Gregory and Ken Follett, your ticket to the past awaits.
New Historical Fiction November 2026
Jane Austen's the Watsons
by Claudia Gray - Jane Austen
From New York Times bestselling author and creator of the beloved Mr. Darcy & Miss Tilney mystery series comes a continuation of Jane Austen's famous unfinished novel
The unsung heroine of Jane Austen's unfinished novel The Watsons is a privileged girl living with her wealthy aunt and uncle absent any meaningful contact with her birth family. Then her life abruptly gets turned upside down: Her uncle dies, and her aunt remarries unwisely, which means she must return to Wiltshire and rejoin the greater Watson clan. There, she becomes an object of desire for the most eligible bachelor in the county, the proud Lord Osborne ... but her own fascination alights upon Mr. Howard, the local clergyman.
In the hundred pages Austen wrote before abandoning the novel, she asks: Can the youngest Watson sister afford to neglect the fortunes of her struggling family to truly follow her heart? But Austen never completed this book--and therefore, her devoted fans have never discovered the answer, leaving the heroine's fate undefined and open to speculation.
Until now, as bestselling author Claudia Gray expands this story into a vivid tale of love, sorrow, social class, honor, and, as in any Austen novel, the ways these all become intertwined for a young woman in Regency-era England. Transforming The Watsons from an unpolished draft into a riveting ensemble novel filled with romance, humor, and social commentary, Gray recaptures the spirit of Austen's most enigmatic story.
The Killing Time: A Mystery
by Elly Griffiths
The second mystery following Ali Dawson, the brilliant time-traveling detective, on her newest foray into Victorian London
Detective Ali Dawson leads a unit that investigates cases so cold her team must travel back in time to solve them. But ever since their technical expert, Jones, got stuck in Victorian London, Ali and her team have been forbidden from time travel.
At a loss, Ali dives into a present-day case - an apparent suicide of a young man who fell to his death from a high building. Ali believes the death is linked to a bad-news psychic medium, Barry Power, who convinced the boy he could fly. Suspicious, Ali attends one of Power's shows, where he claims to be in contact with none other than Jones.
Minor trouble closer to home inspires Ali to sneak back in time just long enough to prevent misfortune. Her plan backfires, and she finds herself once again in Victorian London, where she reencounters Jones, as well as the darkly mysterious Cain Templeton, with whom Ali has unfinished business from her previous visit to the 19th century ...
When she spies Barry Power lurking in the past, Ali knows she's onto something. But with a potential murderer operating in multiple centuries, how on earth is she supposed to protect everyone at risk?
It's a different time. It's a dangerous time. It's the killing time.
The Turning Tide: A Novel of Love and War
by James Stavridis
Scott Bradley James, like the US Navy in which he serves, is uncertain of the course he sails, both in war and love. While the threat of defeat that loomed over the first half of America's war against Japan is behind him, much danger lies ahead. Disastrous mistakes can still be made--and they will be. For James and his comrades, their cost will be high indeed--both at sea against a fanatic foe, and on the home front in relations of the heart.
Reminiscent of Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance, The Turning Tide fuses disparate elements into a masterpiece of historical fiction. It is a riveting account of some of the US military's most iconic battles, from the Leyte Gulf to Iwo Jima, and on to Okinawa and the dropping of the atomic bomb. It is also a meditation on command. But what distinguishes this lyrical novel is its power to capture the forces at work on those caught in the whirlwind of war: their courage, fear, and loyalty to friend and country in contrast to the pettiness of vanity and personal ambition.
Rarely has an understanding of the canvas of war been more happily married to a reckoning with the character of combatants alongside their lovers at home. As in Dante's Inferno, Scott Bradley James passes through the pain of conflict and confusion navigating an uncaring sea, learning as he sails. Through the power of fiction, the fruits of his hard-won education in the most consequential war of our nation's history is within reach of every reader.
The Unfinished Work: A Novel of Abraham Lincoln
by Jeff Shaara
New York Times bestselling novelist Jeff Shaara brings to vivid life the man, public and private, who guided the U.S.A. through its most troubled, conflicted time: Abraham Lincoln.
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced." - The Gettysburg Address, 1863
New York Times bestselling novelist Jeff Shaara, renowned for his body of work exploring the conflicts and personalities surrounding key moments in American history, turns his attention to one of the most consequential figures during one of the most critical points in history: Abraham Lincoln. As only the finest of historical novelists can do, Shaara brings to life the travails and conflicts, victories and tragic defeats, the legends and the history, both personal and private of Lincoln during the country's most pivotal years.
Beginning with his election as President in 1860, through his time in the Oval Office, Shaara reveals the complexities behind the man who refused to let the deep divisions and conflicting emotions permanently sunder the country itself, at great personal cost. The Unfinished Work is the finest work yet by one of the most popular, most acclaimed historical novelist of our time, a capstone to a life's work.
Love, Like Apples
by Jeff Zentner
A lyrical, deeply felt story of an artist and the great love that defined his life, set against the electric, delirious backdrop of 1970s New York City and the tumultuous years prior--for readers of Taylor Jenkins Reid and Kristin Hannah.
Growing up motherless and under the cruel eye of his alcoholic, emotionally distant father, Tiller Loomis seems destined for a hardscrabble life. In the 1960s, the small Appalachian town of Sawyer, Tennessee offers few opportunities outside of working arduous hours on his family's apple orchard. The one ray of light is his older brother Smith, a compassionate and gentle boy who salvages what might have otherwise been a brutal childhood. Kindness, he teaches Tiller, is a choice.
But when Smith is drafted into the Vietnam War, Tiller's world collapses. Directionless and grief-stricken, he stumbles into a children's puppet show at his church and ultimately finds purpose and joy through the strange, tender art of puppetry.
Chasing his dream of puppeteering full time, Tiller lands in the gritty, graffitied, bohemian hothouse of 1977 New York City, where experimental artists and misfit idealists are using puppets to try to reach teens with a message of hope on a PBS show called Imagine Nation. In Imagine Nation's cast, Tiller finds a chosen family of dreamers and creators who will change his life forever, chief among whom is the beautiful Julie DiFrancesca, a fiercely vivacious woman who offers Tiller a chance at a life he never thought possible.
AN AUDIBLE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK FOR FALL AND OCTOBER INDIE NEXT PICK
Peregrine Hill
by Nina de Gramont
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Christie Affair comes a sweeping novel set in Gilded Age New York where a forced marriage, family secrets, and the fight for freedom collide in an unforgettable story about a desperate mother and headstrong daughter navigating a world built on men's appetites and women's silence.
"A luminous, entrancing novel ... The Gilded Age springs to vivid life in these pages, but beware, for not all that glitters is gold." – Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid series
At the dawn of the 20th century, widow Isabelle Bishop still believes in love--but she knows only money can save her. After losing her husband and three of her children in a shipwreck, she has one chance to rescue what remains of her family: her daughter Mariah and her elderly mother. When Isabelle captures the attention of John Whitten, one of New York's wealthiest men, she dares to hope that fortune might finally favor her.
But Whitten's interest is not in Isabelle--it's in 18-year-old Mariah, still reeling from a romantic but disastrous scandal. When Whitten discovers the secret mother and daughter have tried to keep buried, he uses it to his advantage, threatening to expose them unless Mariah accepts his proposal. For the sake of their survival, Isabelle makes a devil's bargain: She will urge her daughter into a marriage she knows could destroy her.
Mariah quickly realizes her husband's home is a gilded cage. Yet even under his watchful eye, she begins to carve out passions of her own, finding an unexpected ally in her ambitious maid, Hetty, and daring to imagine a life beyond her constricted world. Together, she and Hetty risk everything to claim a measure of power and self-determination in a world that attempts to deny them both.
From the glittering parlors of Gilded Age New York to the windswept cliffs of Rhode Island, Peregrine Hill is a novel in the tradition of Edith Wharton and the Brontë sisters, about unlikely love affairs and the impossible choices women have always been forced to make.
The Cursed Diamond
by Anna Rasche
In New York City a century apart, two women's fates are bound by the dark legacy of the Midnight Diamond
2010. Jennie is working as a runner in the Diamond District when a friend's sudden death leaves her with a cryptic note: "Not Safe." Her search for answers leads her to an antique jewelry box, a clue to a century-old mystery and the legend of the Midnight Diamond--a rare blue gem rumored to bring ruin to all who possess it. As Jennie is pulled deeper into a world of secrets and danger, she realizes she is not just chasing a lost treasure; she is uncovering a story that was meant to stay buried.
1910. On an ocean liner bound for New York, heiress Marcella Porter returns home after being disgraced by scandal in London. Her path collides with a charismatic nobleman and the magnificent Midnight Diamond, which she unknowingly smuggles into the city. Mesmerized by its brilliance, Marcella feels an irresistible pull toward the diamond, and when the glittering façade of her charmed life begins to crack, Marcella must decide whether the Midnight Diamond is her salvation--or her doom.
Can Jennie break the centuries-old curse before it brings more ruin? Inspired by history's most captivating gemstone, The Cursed Diamond is a thrilling mystery about fate, obsession, and the deadly costs of ambition.
The Last Prince of Florence
by Zoe Sivak
Based on the true story of Alessandro de' Medici, this sweeping novel follows a Black woman's secret plot to put her son on a Renaissance throne.
In 1490, a dark-skinned baby girl arrives at the Santo Spirito foundling hospital with a bronze dagger strapped to her chest. Raised by Iye, a scarred African nurse who teaches her to fight and survive, Simonetta refuses the only futures offered to foundling girls: nun or wife.
She has bigger plans.
Years later, when a midnight brawl leaves exiled prince Lorenzo de' Medici owing her his life, Simonetta talks her way into the legendary Medici family--and finds herself falling for the beloved Medici son. But her dark skin and sharp tongue make enemies, and when the family accuses her of witchcraft, she's forced to reveal her secret weapon: she's pregnant with a potential Medici heir.
Alessandro's birth should secure her place in the family. Instead, it makes her their prisoner.
Her own ambitions thwarted, Simonetta is determined to do anything--lie, cheat, and kill--to put Alessandro on Florence's throne. European empires feed on the growing African slave trade, and the biracial boy threatens everything her enemies believe about power, bloodlines, and Simonetta's legacy.
As the gulf between mother and son widens, Simonetta must choose between the crown she sacrificed everything for and the son who wears it.
New Historical Fiction Books October 2026
A Waltz to Remember: Stephanie's Story
by Mary Balogh
A single waltz changed everything. But now they must try to preserve that magic for a lifetime in New York Times bestselling author Mary Balogh's new book in the Ravenswood series.
The youngest Ware daughter, Stephanie, has always harbored secret passion for the best friend of her brother. In her eyes Bertrand Lamarr, Viscount Watley, is perfect. For many years she thought of herself as quite the opposite. When he surprised her by asking her to save a waltz for him, she panicked--and refused him in the unkindest words.
Stephanie's guilt over her behavior is such that she now dreads seeing him, as she inevitably must, at the Christmas family reunion she is attending. She wants to hide from him, but what she doesn't know is that Bertrand has always admired her from afar and is determined to overcome her apparent dislike of him and win his waltz. For he believes there is magic between them, and they will discover it can conquer all their regrets and fears if they but give themselves a chance.
Adam and Eve
by Jeffrey Archer
THE FINAL NOVEL FROM THE MASTER STORYTELLER
November 11th, 1918. As the guns of the First World War fall silent, two babies draw their first breath.
Eve is the daughter of an Earl. Adam, a shepherd's son. Yet from their first meeting they form an extraordinary bond that neither privilege nor prejudice can break.
Then on a single September night in 1940, as Hitler prepares to invade the British Isles, their actions will change his mind. Determining not just their own futures but the fate of a nation.
They will show extraordinary courage. They will make unimaginable sacrifices. And the story of what they did will stay with you long after you've turned the last page.
From the green fields of England to the beaches of Dunkirk, Adam & Eve is a breathtaking epic of courage, sacrifice, and love forged in Britain's darkest hour.
- "An enthralling tale perfect for fans of history, romance and suspense." Kirkus
- "There are few writers who can tell the kind of epic-scale stories that he seems to spin so effortlessly." Booklist
- "This is an exhilarating send-off." Publishers Weekly
- "A storyteller in the class of Alexandre Dumas." Washington Post
- "One of the top ten storytellers in the world." Los Angeles Times
- "Archer is a master entertainer." Time
Mystery Play
by Elizabeth Kostova
The last living member of a family of historians who has been hunted by dark forces associated with Dracula finds himself in peril at the hands of a new threat in this thrilling novel from the #1 bestselling author of The Historian.
After his beloved mother passes away suddenly, Jay Turner finds himself at a crossroads. She was always secretive, and when he returns to their Boston home to clear out her possessions, he finds an unusual item: a partially burned scrap of newspaper bearing the name "Gael Brogan." Soon after, a deliveryman leaves behind a package containing a small antique volume bound in leather--and two bloody footprints.
The sight of the volume is chilling. As a young scholar, his mother had been given the medieval book--one of a set commissioned by Vlad Țepeș, otherwise known as Dracula, just before his death in 1477. She'd always warned Jay of the dangers associated with it, and had donated it to a museum before she died . . . yet here it is, back in his possession.
Jay sets out to learn more about Gael Brogan, a prominent nineteenth-century actor whose last and most famous role was based on Bram Stoker's Dracula. As Jay begins to dig deeper--with the help of a mysterious woman named Rhiannon--he uncovers the frightening story of a young actress who fell under Brogan's sway long ago. Before long, Jay and Rhiannon realize that something similarly implacable is pursuing them.
In this epic and riveting tale, Elizabeth Kostova takes us deep into the Gilded Age of the theater and across the Atlantic in pursuit of an ancient evil and its dramatic followers.
Queen of Lombard Street
by Lisa Kleypas
From New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas--a sweeping, richly layered Victorian novel about a trailblazing female economist who's determined to build Britain's first women's bank, but she must fight both financial corruption and a system intent on destroying the newly found family she's created.
In Victorian England, no woman--not even a brilliant economist like Reina Martin--is allowed to open her own bank account. Men will take care of everything, women are told. But Reina knows better. As the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish immigrant mother, she's haunted by the memory of living with unpaid grocer's bills and no coal for the hearth.
So together with her mentor, the powerful banker William Farlow, Reina will build the first all-women's bank, where women can manage their own financial security.
At home, Reina's domestic staff of recently paroled prisoners are building new lives and becoming a found family. But soon Reina is shocked to discover that her enigmatic butler, John Pembroke, is an undercover police detective. He's been assigned to investigate Farlow, who's suspected of financial crime on a scale so massive, it could destabilize the British economy. Pembroke needs Reina's expertise for a high-stakes nighttime heist to obtain incriminating evidence.
Now Reina faces the agonizing choice of betraying her mentor or turning her back on thousands of working-class families who stand to lose everything. Either way, her dream of the women's bank may be over.
But courage and sacrifice aren't limited to the battlefield--they also occur at the kitchen table, where women who believe in compassion and community are working to remake the future. And when the stakes are highest, Reina knows to trust her heart as well as her intellect.
Based on real-life trailblazers such as Mary Paley Marshall, Britain's first female economist, and financial titan Hetty Green, Queen of Lombard Street brings to light the hidden history of extraordinary women whose achievements should be celebrated. How can we know who we are, if we don't know who we were?
Royal Witch
by Philippa Gregory
Royal Witch: the gripping new novel from the international bestselling author.
Ambition. Sorcery. Treason. How far will one woman dare to go?
1420. Eleanor Cobham arrives at the court of Henry V. Pretty but not highborn, she hopes for nothing more than to marry well.
It is a golden age for England, its royal family's dynasty stretching across Europe. But chaos waits in the shadows. Betrayals and shifts of power change the flourishing world Eleanor has stepped into.
Working in the household of a Countess who commands her own army, Eleanor begins to see for the first time what a woman is capable of...what men's promises are truly worth.
As the safe, comfortable future she'd envisioned begins to shift, Eleanor changes with it. Now she must use her wits to survive - and to rise. Her newfound ambition will to carry her further than any woman before has dared. But if she is to rule England itself, she will need to turn to darker arts.
Solace House
by Will MacLean
You are about to enter a place of strange genius, possible madness, and timeless love . . .
"The Secret History meets The Haunting of Hill House ... rich, thoughtful, terrifying."--Nicholas Binge, author of Dissolution
An addictive and brilliant puzzle box of a novel following a group of university students who discover an astonishing secret while clearing out a neglected Victorian mansion
For Alex Lane's wealthy university friends, the summer break stretches out before them, full of promise and fabulous plans. But for Alex, broke as usual, going home is not an option. So when the university offers him an unusual summer job clearing out a dilapidated Victorian mansion, Solace House, he jumps at the chance.
Alex joins an unlikely crew of students, from stoner Clive to uptight, short-tempered Helen, and the extremely peculiar Adam. Alex is particularly drawn to mercurial, red-headed Ella, and as the students begin sorting through piles of old newspapers and magazines, dusty antiques, and esoteric junk, Alex and Ella become enthralled by the elaborate and eerie journals of the house's former owner, Edwin Flayne. In these diaries, Flayne details his obsession with his missing mother and his belief in a mysterious realm lying parallel to ours, along with coded instructions on how it might be reached.
As the students gradually uncover the house's secrets, the rift between those who want to delve further and those who believe they've already gone too far grows ever wider.
The Piano Teacher of Montparnasse
by Heather Morris
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz returns with a masterful new novel that captures the astonishing bravery of ordinary people in extraordinary times.
In 1942, the Nazis come for a Jewish family living in the Montparnasse area of occupied Paris. In the chaos of their arrest, 11-year-old Josephine runs to the only person she can trust: her piano teacher, Andrée Levallois, a secret French Resistance operative.
Andrée takes her in as a member of the family, spreading their rations and risking everything to keep her safe. But soon the authorities close in, and both Andrée and Josie are caught in a desperate race to stay alive.
Epic in scope and based on real people and historical events, Heather Morris has written a story of breathtaking beauty, at once gripping, heartbreaking, and uplifting.
The Queen of Roses
by Julia Kelly
Spanning the ballrooms of Pasadena and the sunlit gardens of Altadena, a new novel of love and sacrifice from the internationally bestselling author of The Light Over London and The Last Garden in England.
1960: Frustrated reporter Theresa Johnson's life changes when she receives a phone call from a Miss Pearce who claims her obituary about one of Pasadena's last great hoteliers is wildly inaccurate. Seeking the truth, Theresa drives to the mysterious Rosewood House nestled high in the Altadena foothills. Even more intriguing than the house's beautiful garden is Miss Pearce's proposal that Theresa help her settle old scores by writing her biography.
1903: Beautiful but haughty, Adele Pearce is reluctant to leave the London Season and her last hope of a proposal. When she arrives in California, she discovers the startling truth of why her mother has called her there: her father has squandered his fortune and Adele must marry a wealthy American to save the family.
Stifled by expectation as Pasadena's newest doyenne, Adele's only comfort is Rosewood House and the beautiful garden she creates with the help of taciturn gardener Alexander Macalister. However, as Adele's feelings for Alex flourish, a fire ignites in the San Gabriel Mountains above Rosewood House, threatening everything Adele holds dear, while in 1960, Miss Pearce learns that history has a terrible habit of repeating itself.
The Scarlet Ball
by Nghi Vo
From USA Today bestselling author Nghi Vo, this all-consuming tale of ballrooms and bloodshed weds The Gilded Age with the Gothic vision of Guillermo del Toro.
Pick a face, pick a fate.
Judith Ban, former convent girl, courtesan, and failed thief, is on the lookout for her next identity. The daughter of a Vietnamese adventuress and a French naval officer, she's no stranger to risk, but she's unprepared for the secrets of New York's legendary Four Hundred, or for the women who build their power at the city's heart through blood-soaked, gold-etched rituals of demonic marriage.
In exchange for enough wealth to outrun her past, Judith strikes a deal with the matriarch of the powerful Howard family: she will stand in for the missing Howard granddaughter, who was poised to make her debut when she disappeared. With Miss Iphigenia Marshall's face stitched over her own, Judith is white, rich, and about to risk body and soul in the deadly games that determine which girls will find a match--and which will be devoured. If she can keep her wits and her life, her reward will be a husband with undreamt-of power who will be hers to command...so long as she can keep his infinite hungers fed. But to survive the season, Judith will have to seduce a storm in the shape of a man, before the night to which everything has been leading--the Scarlet Ball where the demons choose their brides.
A razor-sharp subversion of romance tropes and nightmare of manners, Vo's fusion of history and fantasy does for Edith Wharton what her acclaimed debut The Chosen and the Beautiful did for F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Historical Fiction New Releases September 2026
Agrippa: A Novel of Ancient Rome's Descent Into Dictatorship
by Robert Harris
From the #1 internationally bestselling author of Conclave and Dictator, a gripping tale of ancient Rome's descent into dictatorship
He was born feet first, a dangerous way to enter the world. His mother did not survive, and the nickname, Agrippa--mother killer--stuck. But the schoolyard taunting only served to harden his resolve and hone his predilection for aggression. In time, the name lost its sting and became instead a mark of his invincibility. It came to shape his destiny.
Agrippa was a mere commoner, a plebeian, his father a humble Stoic, but he earned the respect and fear of his peers. He defended a bullied young boy, Octavius, who turned out to be the nephew of Caesar himself, a chance encounter that would change the trajectory of his life. He eventually joined the ranks of the legionnaires and marched against their enemies.
As gripping and full of intrigue as his bestselling novel Conclave, Agrippa is Robert Harris's monumental return to the world of ancient Rome on the precipice of dictatorship, a novel for our times.
The Barman of the Ritz
by Philippe Collin
AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - A BLOOMBERG BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A celebrated bartender at the Ritz Hotel during the Nazi occupation of Paris harbors a dangerous secret in this "magnificent" (ELLE), "brilliant" (Le Parisien) international bestseller based on a true story.
"The Barman of the Ritz brilliantly captures the tense, morally murky atmosphere of Nazi-occupied France. Richly researched and utterly absorbing, this World War II novel pulls readers inside Paris's legendary Ritz Hotel--where every cocktail, every conversation, and every choice could change a life forever." -- Anne Berest, author of The Postcard
Paris, 1940. The Nazis have descended on Paris and the Occupation has begun. Businesses across the city have shuttered, but the legendary Ritz Hotel remains open, its dazzling lights still burning bright on the Place Vendôme. When it becomes the favorite watering hole of the occupying forces, its barman, Frank Meier, is forced to adapt to a new clientele. But Frank has a secret: he is Jewish.
Tensions rise as the war progresses, but Frank refuses to leave his post behind the bar. Unbeknownst to the Nazi officers he serves night after night, Frank forms precarious alliances with unlikely accomplices in order to save other Jewish families in the city and keep his loved ones alive.
Inspired by real events, with the highest of stakes and a brilliant protagonist, The Barman of the Ritz is a heady cocktail of history and fiction set in one of Paris's most glamorous places, diving deep into the impossible choices of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances.
Dodge City
by Patrick DeWitt
From bestselling author Patrick deWitt comes Dodge City, a rollicking novel about a young man on an amphetamine-fueled cross-country road trip, fleeing the draft for the safe haven of Canada.
It's 1967 in Los Angeles and Lee Clarke has received his draft notice, calling him up to fight in the Vietnam War. A straitlaced, apolitical 23-year-old from Concrete, Washington, Lee is studying at UCLA until a fistfight leads to his expulsion--and his removal from the deferment list. The draft notice forces him to make the first political decision of his life, and though he's happy in California and loves his girlfriend, he will leave the country and head for the border.
He signs up at a drive-away car-delivery service, chancing into a showroom-new Jaguar bound for the East Coast. Bringing only a single suitcase and a bag of amphetamines, he makes his stimulated progress against the width of the country, pining for the life he's left behind and wondering what his decision will mean for his future.
But he is not just saying goodbye to the country of his birth. In four different towns strung out along the northern United States, Lee visits each member of his immediate family: his father, a World War II veteran in a state of degradation; his mother, engaged in a buoyantly manic and never-ending performance with her shut-in sibling; his heartbroken, misanthropic brother, Harry; and finally his twin sister, Grace, a brash, young nurse-in-training mired in romantic drama at a Manhattan psychiatric hospital.
An arresting portrait of a country in flux and a family in disarray, Dodge City represents a signal achievement in an already illustrious body of work by the "twenty-first-century Mark Twain" (Slate). Witty, moving, and delightfully off-kilter, Patrick deWitt's sixth novel is a brilliant and raucous exploration of family, country, division, and war, from an elegant humorist who never shies from the stranger aspects of human behavior.
The Library of Leaving
by Emily Dunlay
From the author of Teddy, a dazzling historical novel about an American librarian in 1920s Switzerland who must face the truth of decisions she made to survive during the First World War.
In the wake of the Great War, American Helen Fox lives a solitary life in Switzerland as a librarian, cataloguing books left as bequests by diplomats and other expatriates. Bookish and buttoned up, Helen is shocked when she receives a package that hints at her far more colorful past: it's a draft chapter of a novel written by a man she knew intimately during the war--a soldier she nursed at a camp in the Alps for wounded Allied troops. Though he claims his book is fiction, Helen is afraid of what it might reveal about who she used to be, really, and whose side she might have been on. ...
Bursting with literary references and testament to the power of reading, this lush and atmospheric tale of love, grief, and betrayal interweaves Helen's own recollections of her life--including her affair with an exiled Austrian baron--with pages from her ex-lover's supposedly fictional book and other dispatches. The Library of Leaving is both a story of a wartime romance and a meditation on how books read or written tell--and sometimes distort--the truth of a life.
Our Noble Selves
by Kate Atkinson
A thrilling tale of post-World War II London, where the peace proves as tricky to navigate as the past, from the #1 international bestselling author of Life After Life.
When crime correspondent turned war reporter Harry Flynn returns to Britain from Singapore in 1945, he takes a quiet job with the Festival of Britain, a government-funded endeavor aimed at celebrating the nation's creativity, grit, and ingenuity. There, he joins a team of misfits and eccentrics as they help to ready the Festival for launch.
When a Frenchwoman goes missing, Flynn becomes the central suspect in her disappearance--and possible murder. He was the last person to see her alive, yet he has no memory of the evening they spent together. As evidence against him mounts, Flynn begins to wonder if he might actually be to blame. To make matters worse, he is surrounded by people who have their own secret agenda.
There may be a carnival atmosphere in London as the country attempts to throw off the drab privations of war, yet beneath the frivolity there is also a worthy attempt to hold up a mirror to both its history and its future. With her unique voice and her skill at conjuring the past, Kate Atkinson turns her light on a nation reconstructing its image and the lengths to which some might go to manipulate the outcome. Witty, brilliantly plotted, and with an unforgettable cast of characters, Our Noble Selves paints a vivid portrait of a former empire struggling with its identity in the aftermath of war.
The Pirate Queen: A Novel from the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Frozen River
by Ariel Lawhon
A sweeping historical adventure inspired by the life of Grace O'Malley, the legendary Irish folk heroine who risked everything to defend her people. Venture onto the high seas with the thrilling latest from the New York Times bestselling author of The Frozen River and I Was Anastasia.
Grace O'Malley was born to be a sea captain. But despite her natural skill on the water, Grace learns early that her dreams of a life at the helm are not compatible with the expectations of her noble family. As the only daughter of a powerful chieftain, her role is to secure a strong alliance and bear children. But when she's sent to foster with a nearby clan, Grace falls for a clever and open-minded second son--a man she cannot have.
Married off against her will to a brutal warrior, Grace performs her duty, all the while gathering followers loyal to her, and consolidating her husband's power, only to be ousted from his lands. But this betrayal offers Grace the opportunity to return to sea, finally leading clan O'Malley's mighty fleet. Just as she finds true independence, Queen Elizabeth's incursions into Ireland grow bolder and Grace must fight to defend her land, her ships, and the people she loves most against the cruel and power-hungry English deputies, who will stop at nothing to check her influence.
Keenly observed and fiercely written, Ariel Lawhon's new action-packed novel channels the untamed beauty and harsh realities of sixteenth-century Ireland, as seen through the eyes of an unforgettable heroine who rightly became “the Pirate Queen of Ireland.”
Soldiers & Sailors
by Terrence Holt
Pursued by a past he cannot bring himself to remember, Hal returns to his decaying Midwestern birthplace, where he takes a job as staff physician at a decrepit veteran's home. There, Hal finds himself the unwilling audience of his patients' horrific stories, and descends with them into a Dantesque vision of the hell of war. Fleeing one hell for another, Hal searches the ruins of his ancestral home for clues to his own family's descent into murder and madness. Between these two worlds, Hal finds a guide in Nell, the wryly attentive receptionist--who harbors her own secrets about both worlds.
The ancient veterans compel Hal to hear what they did and what they suffered, remembering a blood-spattered village in France, or the infernal jungles of New Guinea, the terrors of the Murmansk run or the rail yards of Dachau. Their anguished recollections illuminate this novel like star shells over a darkened battlefield. As the veterans' war stories grow stranger and more terrible, they lead Hal to a terrifying discovery: about his patients, his family, and his collapsing world.
In Hal's struggle to rebuild his world on the ruins of his father's war, Terrence Holt has created a gripping saga, one ringing with the echoes of America's bloodstained history, and the dire possibilities of our collective future. An epic celebration of the storyteller's craft, Soldiers & Sailors offers a literary testament to the heroism of those whose sacrifice must never be forgotten.
Taxi Dancer
by Marivi Soliven
"Welcome to the electrifying underworld of California's Depression-era taxi dance halls, where a dance could cost you a dime, a chance at romance, or a bullet in your back."--Rick Bonus, Professor and Chair at the Dept. of American Ethnic Studies in the Univ. of Washington
Based on a true story, Taxi Dancer is a gripping historical novel by Marivi Soliven that illuminates the hidden world of Depression-era Filipino taxi dance halls, weaving a forbidden interracial romance with a high-stakes murder mystery to explore race, desire, survival, and the Filipino American experience in 1930s California.
"If we can't marry white girls, we can at least dance with them." In response to Depression-era California laws that criminalized interracial marriage, Filipinos established taxi dance halls where they could mingle with American women.
When Filipino farmworker Eli and American taxi dancer Lucinda fall in love, they hope to move to Washington State where they can legally wed. Their plans are derailed when Eli is arrested for the shooting death of a dance hall owner.
As Lucinda fights to exonerate Eli, she uncovers a murder conspiracy orchestrated by Mamie Savage, a rival dance hall owner and Sal, her Filipino bartender. The capital punishment trial brings to light abhorrent secrets concealed by the conspirators, the victim, and Lucinda herself. Inspired by true events in San Diego's Stingaree district.
World News from Waverley High
by Linda Kass
A tale of identity, activism, and finding your voice in a world on fire, this coming-of-age novel set at an urban high school captures a singular moment in American history--through the eyes of one unforgettable girl.
1969. Lena Rosen is an intelligent, observant teenager torn between spontaneity and self-consciousness. During her junior year, she becomes attuned to the pulse of her times in her first-period Current History class, where rebellion, social change, and musical innovation of the 1960s dominate discussion.
When Lena becomes the associate editor of the school newspaper The Beacon, she is drawn into the swirling discourse surrounding the Vietnam War, civil rights, environmental disasters, and campus protests--while also grappling with her growing attraction to Jack Stone, the paper's editor.
As the year progresses and the antiwar movement gains momentum, the unrest builds at Waverley High. Lena wrestles with her own cultural and religious identity as a Jewish teen while she and her fellow students struggle to cope with racial discord, a bomb threat, and the emotional toll of a world that seems to be unraveling. When tragedy collapses the distance between headlines and Lena's own life, she must decide what it means to stand for peace--and to hope for a better world.
Set during one school year against the backdrop of an America on the brink of change, World News from Waverley High reveals the crossroads of personal growth and national unrest.
For more historical fiction book recommendations, check out our Time Traveler picks for Summer 2026. You may also enjoy our book recommendations for Bookworms or Leading Ladies.