If Love Comes by Gladys Malvern

Title: If Love Comes
Author: Gladys Malvern (1897-1962)
Illustrator: John Alan Maxwell
Publication: Claude Kendall Publishers, hardcover, 1932
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: California, 1820s

Description: When Don Estevan Jose Luis de Questallo loses his wife in childbirth, the joy goes out of his life and he instinctively blames the surviving child who is named Magdalena. He lavishes attention on his son, Dario, and ignores the girl, who grows up lovely but unloved by all but her brother.

The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss, historical fiction set in WWII Holland

Title: The Upstairs Room
Author: Johanna Reiss
Publication: HarperCollins, paperback, originally published in 1972
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: Holland, WWII

Description: Annie de Leeuw is the youngest of three sisters, living in Holland, not far from the German border. Her father is a cattle dealer, her mother an invalid, her sister Rachel teaches at a nursery school, and sister Sini is studying farming. But Annie’s family is Jewish and everyone is worried about the news from Poland where Hitler has invaded.

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field for the #1929Club

Title: Hitty: Her First Hundred Years
Author: Rachel Field (1894-1942)
Illustrator: Dorothy P. Lathrop
Publication: Macmillan, paperback, originally published in 1929
Genre: Children’s fiction/fantasy/historical fiction

Description: Hitty is a doll hand-carved from a small piece of mountain-ash wood by a peddler in early 19th century Maine, then given to Phoebe Preble, whose father is away at sea. Seven-year-old Phoebe is tasked with making clothes for her doll, which include a chemise embroidered with HITTY “so she can always be sure of her name.”

Beauvallet by Georgette Heyer for the #1929Club

Title: Beauvallet
Author: Georgette Heyer
Publication: Dutton hardcover, originally published in 1929
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 16th-century

This week, Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings are hosting the 1929 Club, where bloggers read and write about books published in a chosen year.

Description: Sir Nicholas Beauvallet is the most dashing of Queen Elizabeth’s sea captains. Known as the Sea Dogs, a group of English privateers was authorized to carry out raids on England's enemies, whether they were formally at with war with them or not.

The Lucky Ones by Linda Williams Jackson

Title: The Lucky Ones
Author: Linda Williams Jackson
Publication: Candlewick Press, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: 1960s Mississippi

Description: Ellis Earl Brown is an ambitious boy who lives with his large family in rural Mississippi. Thanks to Julius Foster, a black teacher in their segregated school, Ellis Earl and his sister Carrie not only get a ride to school but also eat lunch brought by Mr. Foster.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Title: Lessons in Chemistry
Author: Bonnie Garmus
Publication: Doubleday, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 20th-century California

Description: Elizabeth Zott is a gifted but eccentric chemist and, unfortunately, a woman in a man’s world in the 1960s. She is belittled, exploited, and sexually assaulted when all she wants is to have the resources to do her job at Hastings Research Institute.

Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner

Title: Bloomsbury Girls
Author: Natalie Jenner
Publication: St. Martin’s, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: London, 1950

Description: In this companion novel to The Jane Austen Society, three women encroach on the male world of bookselling at a shop in the Bloomsbury section of London.

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin

Title: The Last Bookshop in London
Author: Madeline Miller
Publication: Hanover Square Press, trade paperback, 2021
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: WWII London

Description: After her mother dies, Grace Bennett and her irrepressible friend, Viv, leave the country for 1939 London, accepting the offer of a rented room from Mrs. Weatherford, a friend of Grace’s mother.

Miss Austen – historical fiction by Gill Hornby

Title: Miss Austen
Author: Gill Hornby
Publication: Flatiron Books, hardcover, 2020
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 19th-century England

Description: In this historical novel set in 1840, Hornby imagines a purposeful visit paid by Cassandra Austen to Kintbury in Berkshire after the deaths of Eliza and Fulwar Fowle.

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher

Title: The Shell Seekers
Author: Rosamunde Pilcher (1924-2019)
Narrator: Hayley Atwell
Publication: Audio, originally published in 1987
Genre: Fiction
Setting: Cornwall, London, Gloucestershire

Description: Returning home after a mild heart attack, Penelope Keeling starts reflecting on her life: her carefree childhood with her artist father and youthful French mother in London and Cornwall, her decision to become a Wren during World War II, her return to Cornwall during the war, bringing up a family in London on little money, and her downsizing to a cottage in the country where she has created an idyllic garden.

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

Title: The Lincoln Highway
Author: Amor Towles
Publication: Viking, hardcover, 2021
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 1954, United States

Description: Emmett Watson has just served fifteen months in a juvenile facility for involuntary manslaughter but is released early when his father dies so he can care for his precocious eight-year-old brother Billy.

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

We stood, feeling others nearby, but unable to see them. I was alone with Liliana, in a private wrapper of darkness.

“Cristian,” she suddenly whispered. “Do you ever wonder . . . if any of it’s real?”

“If what’s real?”

“The things we see in videos – in American movies.”

It was an odd question. Or maybe it felt odd because I had wondered the same thing but never had the courage to say it out loud. But it also felt . . . suspicious somehow. Too honest.

The Glass-Blowers by Daphne du Maurier – for DDM Week

Title: The Glass-Blowers
Author: Daphne du Maurier
Publication: Doubleday & Company, hardcover, 1963
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 18th and 19th century France

Description: In this historical novel, du Maurier tells the imagined story of her actual ancestors, the Busson family, glass-blowers in rural France, and how they were affected by the French Revolution.

Highland Rebel by Sally Watson #1954Club

Title: Highland Rebel
Author: Sally Watson
Illustrator: Scott Maclain
Publication: Image Cascade, paperback, originally published in 1954
Genre: Juvenile Historical Fiction
Setting: Scotland, 1745

Description: Lauren Cameron may be a girl in a family of claymore wielding Scottish warriors but she knows how to use a rapier and dreams of defending Bonnie Prince Charlie and fighting the British.

I’m Deborah Sampson by Patricia Clapp

Title: I’m Deborah Sampson
Author: Patricia Clapp
Publication: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., hardcover, 1977
Genre: Juvenile historical fiction
Setting: 18th century Massachusetts and New York

Description: In this historical novel about Deborah Sampson, the Massachusetts native who famously disguised herself as a man to fight in the Revolutionary War, Clapp provides a convincing background for Sampson’s decision to enlist and her ability to carry out such an improbable undertaking.

Jeannie's War by Carol MacLean

Title: Jeannie’s War
Author: Carol MacLean
Publication: Hera Books, ebook, 2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: WWII Scotland

Description: It is 1939 and the country is now at war with Germany. Jeannie Dougal lives with her widowed mother and siblings on Kiltie Street in the Glasgow tenements. Her younger brother and sister have been evacuated to the countryside with other children while 15-year-old Kathy yearns to be grown up and is cruising for a bruising.

Hotel Portofino by J.P. O'Connell, coming on PBS

Title: Hotel Portofino
Author: J.P. O’Connell
Publication: Blackstone Publishing, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: Italian Riviera, 1926

Description: Bella Ainsworth set her heart on opening an upscale hotel in Italy – she thinks the change of scenery will solve all family’s troubles –so has coaxed them all to Portofino: her caddish husband, Cecil, who married her for her money; their son Lucian, who nearly died in the Great War, and has still not fully recovered; their spiteful daughter Alice, widowed in the war; and Alice’s daughter, Lottie.

Carrie's War by Nina Bawden – based on the author's WWII evacuation to Wales

Title: Carrie’s War
Author: Nina Bawden
Publication: J.B. Lippincott Company, hardcover, 1973
Genre: Children’s Historical Fiction
Setting: WWII Wales

US cover

Description: Like many other London children in 1939, Carrie and Nick Willow were evacuated from war-torn London for safety with a case each, gas masks slung over their shoulders, and their names on cards around their neck like labels.

Bluebird by Sharon Cameron – a German teen comes to post-war NYC on a revenge mission

Title: Bluebird
Author: Sharon Cameron
Publication: Scholastic, hardcover, 2021
Genre: YA historical fiction
Setting: WWII II Germany, Post WWII America

Description: Arriving in New York from Germany in 1946 with her friend Brigit under her wing, seventeen-year-old Eva has a deadly mission.

The Cardboard Crown by Martin Boyd

Title: The Cardboard Crown
Author: Martin Boyd (1893-1972)
Publication: Text Publishing, trade paperback, originally published in 1952
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: England and Australia

Description: Guy Langton, the narrator and author’s alter ego, is a writer who fought in WWI and became a published author in England. When he returns to Australia in 1949, he tries to restore his grandparents’ home, Westhill, about 30 miles from Melbourne, but he realizes this project isn’t really helping him reestablish his roots.