Booklists: suggested reading

 

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Historical Fiction - Adult Books for Teens Booklist

 

Historical Fiction for ages 12+
Not all books on this list are suitable for all readers, parental guidance should be used.

 

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

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• March
  Author: Brooks, Geraldine
  Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670033359 Date: 2005
  PW
  From the author of the international bestseller Year of Wonders comes a powerful love story set against the catastrophe of the Civil War. From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, and adds adult resonance to portray the moral complexity of war and a marriage tested by the demands of extreme idealism.
  Suggested Reading: Civil War Stars
  Updated 12.27.04
• Secret Father
  Author: Carroll, James
  Publisher: Houghton $ 25 ISBN: 0618152849 Date: 2003
  LJPW
  Secret Father is a suspenseful drama of family and politics set in Cold War Berlin. Missed signals, cloaked motives, false postures, and panicked responses echo tragically across borders and generations when, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a father and son recount the tense events of nearly thirty years before. - Publisher Marketing
  Updated 7.1.03
• The Lady and the Unicorn
  Author: Chevalier, Tracy
  Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0525947671 Date: 2004
  BooklistKirkusPW Accelerated Reader Selection
  An extraordinary story exquisitely told, Chevalier's The Lady and the Unicorn weaves history and fiction into a beautiful, timeless, and intriguing literary tapestry that rivals in grace and grandeur the masterpiece that inspired it.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 12.8.03
• Marrying Mozart
  Author: Cowell, Stephanie
  Publisher: Penguin $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670032689 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  Cowell's richly textured tale captures a remarkable historical figure and the four young women who engage his passion, his music, and his heart.
  Suggested Reading: Debuts
  Updated 11.24.03
• The Summer We Got Saved
  Author: Devoto, Pat Cunningham
  Publisher: Warner $ 23.95 ISBN: 0446576964 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  Tab is a budding Archie Bunker until her Aunt whisks her off to a place in the mountains of Tennessee where integration flourishes. Maudie, Tab's childhood friend, couldn't care less about the struggles of her black brother and sisters until she is sent to the backwoods of Alabamato start a voting school for members of the Word of Truth Church. This is a summer with swirling winds of change and no one will be untouched. - Adapted from Publisher Marketing.
  Suggested Reading: Summertime Stars | Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 4.22.05
• Birth of Venus
  Author: Dunant, Sarah
  Publisher: Knopf $ 21.95 ISBN: 1400060737 Date: 2004
  LJ
  The Birth of Venus is a tour de force from one of Britain's most innovative thriller writers. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a remarkable heroine with the same vibrancy as her beloved city.
  Updated 12.29.03
• The Pride of Carthage: A Novel of Hanibal's War
  Author: Durham, David Anthony
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 26.95 ISBN: 0385506031 Date: 2005
  PWLJBooklist
  Featuring a vast cast of characters and nationalities, twists of fate, and tales of inspired leadership, this epic work of literary fiction chronicles the superb military leader of Carthage, Hannibal Barca, and his struggle against the mighty Roman Republic.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | African American Stars
  Updated 1.18.05
• The Moon in Our Hands
  Author: Dyja, Thomas
  Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 25 ISBN: 0786715057 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  From the author of Play for a Kingdom comes a masterful story inspired by the early life of Walter White, a blonde, blue-eyed, and very light-skinned African-American, who, in 1918, was recruited by the NAACP to investigate a brutal lynching in a small Tennessee town.
  Updated 2.7.05
• Jim the Boy
  Author: Earley, Tony
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 23.95 ISBN: 0316199648 Date: 2000
  PWLibrary Journal
  A ten-year-old boy takes his first tentative steps toward adulthood in a tiny southern town in the early 20th century, measuring himself against the high standards set by his mother and uncles and the long shadows cast by his dead father.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 5/19/00.
• Leonardo's Swans
  Author: Essex, Karen
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 21.95 ISBN: 0385517068 Date: 2006
  LJ
  Leonardo's Swans is the story of the powerful Este sisters, Beatrice, Duchess of Milan, and Isabella, Marchesa of Mantua, as they compete for the affections of Italy's most influential prince, the Duke of Milan, and for the larger prize, to be immortalized in oil by his court painter and engineer, Leonardo da Vinci.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
  Updated 1.31.06
• The Wild Girl: The Notebooks of Ned Giles, 1932
  Author: Fergus, Jim
  Publisher: Hyperion $ 23.95 ISBN: 1401300545 Date: 2005
  PWBooklist
  From the award-winning author of One Thousand White Women comes a novel in the tradition of Little Big Man, tracing one man's search for adventures and the wild Apache girl who invites him into her world.
  Suggested Reading: Western Stars
  Updated 4.22.05
• The Water Dancers
  Author: Gamble, Terry
  Publisher: Morrow $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060542667 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  Told in a voice as clear and cool as lake water, The Water Dancers is a luminescent tale of love, loss, and redemption, and heralds the arrival of a remarkable new talent.
  Updated 5.14.03
• Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacagawea
  Author: Glancy, Diane
  Publisher: Overlook $ 21.95 ISBN: 158567365x Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  The drama and wonder of the Lewis and Clark expedition recaptured through the voice of Sacajawea, the enigmatic Shoshoni woman who accompanied them through the West.- Publisher Marketing.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
  Updated 11.12.02
• Wickett's Remedy
  Author: Goldberg, Myla
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385513240 Date: 2005
  KirkusLJ
  The triumphant follow-up to the bestselling Bee Season, is a novel about the dream of progress--personal, scientific, commercial, and cultural--featuring a charming heroine whose desire for a better life comes up against the sweep of history.
  Suggested Reading: Flu | Historical Fiction
  Updated 7.12.05
• Forever
  Author: Hamill, Pete
  Publisher: Little, Brown $ 25.95 ISBN: 0316341118 Date: 2003
  PW
  Cormac O'Connor, who arrives in New York City from Ireland in 1741, has been given the gift of immortality--but only on the condition that he never leave the island of Manhattan. Through his eyes, this magical epic follows the city's transformation from a burgeoning settlement to the thriving metropolis of the present day. But this is also Cormac's story as he explores the mysteries of time and immortality, death and loss, sex and love.
  Suggested Reading: Immortalism | Time Travel Stars
  Updated 12.23.02
• Pompeii
  Author: Harris, Robert
  Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0679428895 Date: 2003
  KirkusBooklist Accelerated Reader Selection
  Ancient Rome is the setting for the superb new novel from Robert Harris, author of the number one bestsellers Fatherland, Enigma and Archangel. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 10.23.03
• Me and Orson Welles
  Author: Kaplow, Robert
  Publisher: Macadam $ 18.50 ISBN: 1931561494 Date: 2003
  Kirkus SLJ Best Book Accelerated Reader Selection
  Set in the 1930s, this is the story of 17-year-old Richard Samuels whose theatrical dreams are answered when Welles offers him a small role in his Broadway debut of Julius Caesar.
  Updated 5.9.05
• Crossing California
  Author: Langer, Adam
  Publisher: Riverhead $ 24.95 ISBN: 1573222747 Date: 2004
  KirkusPWBooklist
  Poignant, ambitious, and tremendously fun, this fiction discovery of the season is a novel about two generations of family and friendship in Chicago from November 1979 through January 1981.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 6.1.04
• Breaking the Tongue
  Author: Loh, Vyvyane
  Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393057925 Date: 2004
  KirkusPW
  This brilliant novel chronicles the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in World War II. Central to the story is one Chinese family. Expatriates, spies, fifth columnists, and nationalists--including the elusive young woman Ling-Li--mingle in this exotic culture as the Japanese threat looms.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars | World War Stars
  Updated 2.2.04
• The Way the Crow Flies
  Author: MacDonald, Ann-Marie
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26.95 ISBN: 0060578955 Date: 2003
  PWBooklist
  From the acclaimed author of Fall on Your Knees--a "New York Times" bestseller and Oprah pick--comes a mesmerizing look "at childhood, marriage, families, the 1960s, the Cold War, and the fear and isolation that are part of the human condition" (Patrick Anderson, "Washington Post Book World").
  Updated 9.22.03
• Property
  Author: Martin, Valerie
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 23.95 ISBN: 038550408x Date: 2003
  PWLJ
  From the acclaimed author of Mary Reilly comes a groundbreaking novel set in the antebellum South during a slave rebellion, told by Manon Gaudet, a female slave owner who speaks about her past, her present, and her longings in an uncensored, pitch-perfect voice from the heart of moral darkness.
  Updated 1.29.03
• Empress Orchid
  Author: Min, Anchee
  Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 0618068872 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Empress Orchid is the story of a fascinating, strong-willed woman who for generations has been vilified as a grand seductress and murderer. Min draws a vivid portrait of a flawed yet utterly compelling woman and, through her life, of the world of the Chinese court and the sexual and political lives of the royal concubines.
  Suggested Reading: Asian American Stars | Biographical Fiction
  Updated 11.25.03
• Brave Enemies
  Author: Morgan, Robert
  Publisher: Algonquin $ 24.95 ISBN: 1565123565 Date: 2003
  PW
  After murdering her abusive stepfather, Josie Summers escapes into the Carolina wilderness disguised as a boy. She is befriended by John Trethman, a traveling minister, who is unaware that she's a girl.
  Updated 6.2.03
• Freshwater Road
  Author: Nicholas, Denise
  Publisher: Agate $ 23.95 ISBN: 1932841105 Date: 2005
  PW
  Celeste Tyree, a young black collegian, leaves Michigan for Mississippi in the summer of 1964 to help found a Freedom School and a voter registration project. As Freedom Summer unfolds, Celeste confronts not only the political realities of race and poverty in this tiny town, but also truths about herself and her own family.
  Suggested Reading: African American Stars | Historical Fiction
  Updated 7.11.05
• The Jester
  Author: Patterson,James & Andrew Gross
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 27.95 ISBN: 0316602051 Date: 2003
  PW
  With the unstoppable pace and plot of his page-turning thrillers, The Jester is a breathtakingly romantic, pulse-pounding adventure set in the Middle Ages--one that could only be conjured by the mind of international bestselling author Patterson.
  Updated 2.4.03
• The Blue Moon Circus
  Author: Raleigh, Michael
  Publisher: Sourcebooks $ 22 ISBN: 1402200153 Date: 2003
  KirkusLJ
  The coming-of-age story of an aging renegade and the boy who finds a home under the big top. Evoking the historical intrigue of Carter Beats the Devil and the ragtag characters of O Brother Where Art Thou?, author Michael Raleigh leads an oddball circus ensemble across the recently tamed, dust-blown American West. - Publisher marketing
  Suggested Reading: Circus Fiction
  Updated 3.31.03
• My Jim
  Author: Rawles, Nancy
  Publisher: Crown $ 19.95 ISBN: 1400054001 Date: 2005
  Kirkus
  A spare and beautiful meditation on love and loss, this novel follows the life of Sadie, the abandoned wife of the escaped slave Jim from Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
  Suggested Reading: African American Stars
  Updated 11.9.04
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
  Author: See, Lisa
  Publisher: Random $ 21.95 ISBN: 1400060281 Date: 2005
  PW
  Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly realistic journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as it is sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female friendship. - Publisher Marketing.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
  Updated 4.19.05
• A Million Nightingales
  Author: Straight, Susan
  Publisher: Pantheon $ I24.95 SBN: 0375423648 Date: 2006
  Booklist
  Haunting and beautifully written, this novel of 19th-century Louisiana is the tale of a slave girl's journey--emotional and physical--from captivity to freedom.
  Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction
  Updated 2.2.06
• My Father Had a Daughter: Judith Shakespeare's Tale
  Author: Tiffany, Grace
  Publisher: Berkley $ 21.95 ISBN: 042519003x Date: 2003
  LJ Accelerated Reader Selection
  After a family tragedy, Judith Shakespeare discovers a copy of her father's new play, which seems to make light of her grief. Furious, she follows him to London, intent on sabotaging the performance--but instead, she discovers that she and her father have more in common than she imagined.
  Updated 5.19.03
• Colour
  Author: Tremain, Rose
  Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 25 ISBN: 0374126054 Date: 2003
  PWKirkusBooklist
  Tremain's new novel is a saga of love and greed set during the mid-19th century gold rush in New Zealand. Newlyweds Joseph and Harriet Blackstone emigrate from England in search of new beginnings and prosperity. But the harsh land where they settle threatens to destroy them almost before they begin.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 5.29.03
• The Songs of the Kings
  Author: Unsworth, Barry
  Publisher: Talese $ 26 ISBN: 0385501145 Date: 2003
  KirkusPW
  As the harsh wind holds the Greek fleet trapped in the straits at Aulis, frustration and political impotence turn into a desire for the blood of a young woman--blood that will appease the gods and allow the troops to set sail. High-sounding principles clash with private motives, and dark comedy ensues.
  Suggested Reading: Ancient Greece
  Updated 2.20.02
• The Forest Lover
  Author: Vreeland, Susan
  Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670032670 Date: 2004
  PW
  A historical novel that tells the story of painter Emily Carr, who shook up the early 20th century art scene with uncompromising brushstrokes that captured the fading wilderness of an increasingly industrialized British Columbia as well as the indigenous villages, the tribal peoples and their dying customs and art forms.
  Updated 11.24.03
• Dancing With Einstein
  Author: Wenner, Kate
  Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743251644 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  From acclaimed author Kate Wenner comes a highly original new novel that explores the lasting effects of the fear of nuclear war on a woman whose father helped develop the atomic bomb.
  Updated 3.11.04
• Lucky Strike
  Author: Zafris, Nancy
  Publisher: Unbridled $ 23.95 ISBN: 1932961046 Date: 2005
  BooklistLJ
  America has always been the place for seekers to reinvent themselves. The canyon country of Utah in the 1950s is just such a territory, where thousands of self-styled prospectors, encouraged by government pamphlets and naove promises, have caught uranium fever and descended upon the desert landscape, hoping to make their fortunes. Among them, a young widow and her two children embark on just such an adventure--for more complicated and heartrending personal reasons. Along the way they join a throng of colorful, unforgettable characters and form the most unexpected bonds. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 3.21.05