Posts tagged with "Historical Fiction"

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Posts tagged with "Historical Fiction"

A Partial History of Lost Causes

Posted by mingh on 04/23/12

In St. Petersburg, Russia, world chess champion Aleksandr Bezetov begins a quixotic quest. With his renowned Cold War–era tournaments behind him, Aleksandr has turned to politics, launching a dissident presidential campaign against Vladimir Putin. He knows he will not win—and that he is risking his life in the process—but a deeper conviction propels him forward. And in the same way that he cannot abandon his aims, he cannot erase the memory of a mysterious woman he loved in his youth.

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, thirty-year-old English lecturer Irina Ellison is on an improbable quest of her own. Certain she has inherited Huntington’s disease—the same cruel illness that ended her father’s life—she struggles with a sense of purpose. When Irina finds an old, photocopied letter her father had written to the young Aleksandr Bezetov, she makes a fateful decision. Her father had asked the Soviet chess prodigy a profound question—How does one proceed against a lost cause?—but never received an adequate reply. Leaving everything behind, Irina travels to Russia to find Bezetov and get an answer for her father, and for herself.

Spanning two continents and the dramatic sweep of history, A Partial History of Lost Causes reveals the stubbornness and splendor of the human will even in the most trying times. With uncommon perception and wit, Jennifer duBois explores the power of memory, the depths of human courage, and the endurance of love.

Permalink Chess, Historical Fiction, Soviet Union

Airs and Graces

Posted by mingh on 03/15/12

January, 1737. Snow blankets Newcastle Upon Tyne. With plans afoot to build new Assembly Rooms for concerts, musician sleuth Charles Patterson is more concerned with the murder of an entire family. It looks an open-and-shut case--the murderer was the fashionable Alice Gregson, who'd upset several neighbours with her snobbish London airs and graces. But where is she now? And why is her sister convinced of her innocence? Patterson must solve the case before the snow clears, allowing the murder to escape the town

Permalink England, Historical Fiction, Mystery

Billy Boyle: A World War II Mystery

Posted by Uncle Will on 10/23/12

Billy Boyle is born in Boston. He comes from a long line of Irish policemen. Just when he gets promoted to detective, he is drafted into the Army. There's a war on and every able-bodied man is needed.

Some men are more able than others. Some are just better connected. It turns out that Billy's uncle is Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander - Allied Armed Forces - Europe. Strings are pulled and Billy becomes a commissioned officer and sails for England to join his uncle's intelligence team.

Before Lt. Billy can become acclimated to this new country, yet alone being an U.S. Army officer, he's assigned (whether he chooses it or not) to uncover a spy. A spy who is imbedded somewhere in the Norwegian network that is planning the invasion to recapture their homeland from German occupancy.

Billy's new teammates are a beautiful British WREN officer and her unlikely lover...a member of Polish royalty.

To convolute things further, a Norwegian officer commits suicide. The more Billy investigates, the less he is convinced that the suicide was a well-disguised murder.

If readers like World War II historical fiction, then this book will be an entertaining quick-read.

Permalink Historical Fiction

Caleb's Crossing

Posted by Auntie Anne on 06/29/11

Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts in the 1640's was primitive, rugged, yet beautiful place. Inhabited by the Wampanoag Indian tribes, the island was rich with vegetation and wildlife, the ocean rich with fish and crab. This is the place chosen by a ragtag group of Puritan English pioneers to establish a settlement in order to escape the cruel treatment of the rigid, Calvinistic British society on the mainland.

The voice of Caleb's Crossing is that of young Bethia Mayfield, whose father was Great Harbor's minister. Bethia is a very bright, curious girl, longing for the education that is denied her because of her sex. So she eavesdrops on her dull brother's Latin, Greek and Hebrew lessons, soaking up the new languages like a sponge. Her free spirit presses her to explore the beautiful island that is her home, much against the strict dictates of a Calvinistic upbringing that demands obedience and domestic subservience from their womenfolk. Through her wanderings, Bethia meets Caleb, an Indian boy her age, and the son of the Chieftan. Bethia teaches Caleb to speak and read her language. He in turn teaches her how to live off the land, gathering berries and herbs, and spear fish from the ocean's shore. She soon becomes fluent in his language. They become the best of friends.

Minister Mayfield takes it upon himself the job of educating and converting the local Indians, thus incurring the wrath of the Shaman, Caleb's uncle. He lands the big prize by taking Caleb into his home to tutor him in the classic languages in preparation for his formal education at Harvard University. The opposing forces of the Calvinist minister and the Wampanoag shaman collide as tragedy and heartbreak follow celebrations and successes.

Caleb's Crossing is Geraldine Brooks at her best, weaving an beautiful, vivid story from a tiny shred of historical fact. Brooks actually recently moved to Martha's Vineyard where she came across a map made by the Wampanoag people that marked the birthplace of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard. Not much is known about Caleb's short but remarkable life. But that is just the hook that Brooks needed to immerse herself in the history of this Indian tribe and Martha's Vineyard, to create another evocative and absorbing historical novel.

Permalink Historical Fiction

Capote in Kansas

Posted by Ultra Violet on 11/07/11

Award-winning author, Kim Powers, examines the unique relationship between the divergent geniuses, Truman Capote and Harper Lee. Powers throws in a ghost story to keep it fun and asks some worthwhile questions about authors crossing the line of privacy with their subjects.

Permalink Ghosts, Historical Fiction, Writers

Country of the Bad Wolfes

Posted by mingh on 03/06/12

James Carlos Blake is a master at weaving historical fact into fiction. Two generations of Wolfe men--begat by an English pirate in New Hampshire in 1828--track their violent but manifest destiny through the Diaz Regime in Mexico in the early 1900s and back to Gulf Coast Texas. The novel centers on two sets of identical "hero twins," each with a violent history that mirror the author's belief on the primacy of violence in the evolution of civilization. Their lives are intertwined with important events through the history of the United States, beginning in the 1820s. Crucial are the histories of the infamous Saint Patrick's Battalion (revered in Mexico as "los San Patricios") who deserted the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and the rise and fall of Porfirio Diaz Regime (1876-1910), which marked the beginning of the Mexican Revolution.

Permalink Historical Fiction, Mexican Revolution, Texas

Daisy Buchanan's Daughter

Posted by Ultra Violet on 11/01/11

Picking up where Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby left off, Tom Carson uses Daisy and Tom Buchanan's daughter as a vehicle for a wild adventure through the 20th Century. Pam Buchanan is a gutsy, liberated woman who is present at many of history's defining moments. Tom Carson speaks through Pam, giving his very original take on America's Century.

Permalink Adventure, Gatsby, Historical Fiction

Dracula In Love

Posted by cclapper on 03/10/11

London -- 1890: Mina Murray, here, tells the tale true- because Bram Stoker got it wrong!

Things are not what we thought. Netherworlds work in ways we had not imagined-

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio! Are you willing to hear them?

Karen Essex garnered attention with Leonardo's Swans, Stealing Athena, Kleopatra, and Pharaoh... She's on a new tack!

Permalink Dracula, Historical Fiction, London

I Was Amelia Earhart

Posted by mingh on 03/22/12

A number of fiction books have been written about the life of Amelia Earhart. I Was Amelia Earhart has her surviving the crash of her plane with her flight navigator, Fred Noonan.

In this brilliantly imagined novel, Amelia Earhart tells us what happened after she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared off the coast of New Guinea one glorious, windy day in 1937. And she tells us about herself. There is her love affair with flying ("The sky is flesh") . . . .

There are her memories of the past: her childhood desire to become a heroine ("Heroines did what they wanted") . . . her marriage to G.P. Putnam, who promoted her to fame, but was willing to gamble her life so that the book she was writing about her round-the-world flight would sell out before Christmas.

There is the flight itself -- day after magnificent or perilous or exhilarating or terrifying day ("Noonan once said any fool could have seen I was risking my life but not living it").

And there is, miraculously, an island ("We named it Heaven, as a kind of joke"). And, most important, there is Noonan . . .

Here are other fiction books about the life of Amelia Earhart.

Permalink Aviators, Historical Fiction, Women

Lightning

Posted by Ultra Violet on 11/10/11

I just can't get enough Tesla (the scientist, not the band). I am also a big fan of Jean Echenoz. He writes with style, grace and honesty. This is an elegant novel, although it is a bit depressing.

Permalink Historical Fiction, Inventors, Tesla