Book picks similar to
Goodnight Eleanor by Margie Bayer
historical-fiction
history
lost
adult-historical-fiction
A Brother's Oath
Chris Thorndycroft - 2015
Denmark, 444 A.D. Two brothers – the cold and calculating Hengest and the intrepid but headstrong Horsa – find their separate worlds thrown into turmoil by royal treachery and an evil cult thought long dead. Reunited by an oath sworn in their youth, they set off on a journey that will define their destiny and set them upon the path to greatness. When Hengest’s family is kidnapped by an unknown enemy, Horsa knows his oath has become more than a thing of words and he infiltrates the crew of one of the most feared raiders in the northern world to find out who took them. Meanwhile, Hengest struggles to unite his rag-tag group of followers into a united people. His heart yearns for a safe haven for his family; a land that he and his followers can call their own for generations to come. This is the first part of the thrilling saga of the two warriors who spearheaded the Anglo-Saxon migrations to Britain and whose names became legendary as the founders of the land that would one day be called England.
All Waiting Is Long
Barbara J. Taylor - 2016
As if to highlight those expectations, Taylor periodically interrupts her third-person narrative with Greek chorus-type commentary from the Scranton-based Isabelle Lumley Bible Class, including excerpts from a 1929 sex manual for women. The overall result is a thought-provoking book club discussion cornucopia."--
Booklist
, Starred review"Set in the 1930s, Taylor's suspenseful and intricate follow-up to Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night tells the story of sisters Violet and Lily Morgan...Taylor delivers startling plot twists and incisive commentary on the social unrest of a coal-mining town during the Great Depression. Covering a six-year span, the novel reveals the consequences of arduous labor and widespread sterilizations that came with the eugenics movement. Among the prostitutes, mobsters, and miners is a web of interconnected lives that come together for a breathtaking ending in Taylor's fine sequel."--
Publishers Weekly
"A good selection for book clubs, All Waiting Is Long is set in Pennsylvania coal country in the 1930s, a time of tumultuous change and social unrest, including the rise of the eugenics movement. Barbara Taylor’s characters—a cast of nuns and prostitutes, mobsters and miners, social activists and church busybodies—reflect the varying pressures and expectations of small-town life with rich, insightful prose and dialogue that rings true to each character’s voice. Will the web of lies the two sisters weave around themselves survive? You’ll have to read it yourself to find out. Recommended."--
Historical Novel Review
"Barbara J. Taylor has created another suspenseful page-turner . . . revealing shocking details of enlightened thinking in the 1930s against the backdrop of political corruption, unions, rampant prostitution, coal mine strikes, and judgmental Christians. But it’s Taylor’s finely honed characters and plot twists that make “All Waiting Is Long” an unforgettable novel."--
BookMark on WPSU
"In this richly populated community, old ties are either torn or tightened, and the characters left behind when the sisters went off are nicely fleshed out...Ms. Taylor writes with total mastery of her craft. Her similes and metaphors are born of a highly developed abstractive sensitivity, and her dialogues are unerringly true to their respective speakers."--BookPleasuresThe latest novel in Akashic's Kaylie Jones Books imprint.All Waiting Is Long tells the stories of the Morgan sisters, a study in contrasts. In 1930, twenty-five-year-old Violet travels with her sixteen-year-old sister Lily from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to the Good Shepherd Infant Asylum in Philadelphia, so Lily can deliver her illegitimate child in secret. In doing so, Violet jeopardizes her engagement to her longtime sweetheart, Stanley Adamski. Meanwhile, Mother Mary Joseph, who runs the Good Shepherd, has no idea the asylum's physician, Dr. Peters, is involved in eugenics and experimenting on the girls with various sterilization techniques.Five years later, Lily and Violet are back home in Scranton, one married, one about to be, each finding her own way in a place where a woman's worth is tied to her virtue. Against the backdrop of the sweeping eugenics movement and rogue coal mine strikes, the Morgan sisters must choose between duty and desire. Either way, they risk losing their marriages and each other.The novel picks up sixteen years after the close of Barbara J. Taylor's debut novel, Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night--a Publishers Weekly Best Summer Book of 2014--and continues her Dickensian exploration of the Morgan
The River Widow
Ann Howard Creel - 2018
Essentially trapped, Adah must plan an escape.But when she develops feelings for the one person essential to her plan’s success, she faces a painful choice: Will she choose to risk everything saving Daisy or take the new life offered by a loving man?
The Aviator's Wife
Melanie Benjamin - 2013
Enthralled by Charles’s assurance and fame, Anne is certain the aviator has scarcely noticed her. But she is wrong. Charles sees in Anne a kindred spirit, a fellow adventurer, and her world will be changed forever. The two marry in a headline-making wedding. In the years that follow, Anne becomes the first licensed female glider pilot in the United States. But despite this and other major achievements, she is viewed merely as the aviator’s wife. The fairy-tale life she once longed for will bring heartbreak and hardships, ultimately pushing her to reconcile her need for love and her desire for independence, and to embrace, at last, life’s infinite possibilities for change and happiness.Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.
While Paris Slept
Ruth Druart - 2021
Jean-Luc is a man on the run from his past. The scar on his face is a small price to pay for surviving the horrors of Nazi occupation in France. Now, he has a new life in California, a family. He never expected the past to come knocking on his door.Paris, 1944. A young Jewish woman's past is torn apart in a heartbeat. Herded onto a train bound for Auschwitz, in an act of desperation she entrusts her most precious possession to a stranger. All she has left now is hope.On a darkened platform, two destinies become intertwined, and the choices each person makes will change the future in ways neither could have imagined.Told from alternating perspectives, While Paris Slept reflects on the power of love, resilience, and courage when all seems lost. Exploring the strength of family ties, and what it really means to love someone unconditionally, this debut novel will capture your heart.
The Columnist: A Play
David Auburn - 2012
Joe sits at the nexus of Washington life: beloved, feared, and courted in equal measure by the very people whose careers and futures he determines. But as the sixties dawn and America undergoes dizzying change, the intense political dramas Joe has been throwing his weight around in—supporting the war in Vietnam and Soviet containment, criticizing student activism—come to bear a profound personal cost.Based on the real-life story of Joe Alsop, whose columns at the time of his 1974 retirement were running three times a week in more than three hundred newspapers, David Auburn’s The Columnist is a deft blend of history and storytelling. A hilarious, searing portrait of the glorious rewards and devastating losses that accompany ego, ambition, and the pursuit of power, The Columnist pens a vital letter from a radically changing decade to our own turbulent era.
MAYA: Symbiogenesis Book One
Pete Barber - 2016
The last-resort treatment transforms Maya's genetic fingerprint. While Lauren struggles to disguise the reason for her daughter's miraculous recovery, Maya develops unique abilities that may signal a new, more hope-filled future for humankind, or perhaps sound its death knell.
William Rising
Hilary Rhodes - 2014
Extensively researched and compellingly told, it introduces us to the passionate drama and violent upheaval of eleventh-century Europe. The world as we know it, and the English language, would have been vastly different were it not for the driving ambition of one man: William the Conqueror. But conquerors are made, not born, and William was made in fire and blood. How does a boy become a man, surviving a tumultuous and terrifying childhood? And how does that man become a legend? William Rising plunges us into this world of danger and betrayal, of choosing sides and dying for absolutes. It follows the creation of a conqueror, as he grows up abandoned, learns to fight at an early age for anything he hopes to keep, and is sculpted into a remorseless, far-sighted, ruthlessly efficient soldier and statesman. From his origins as an orphaned, penniless bastard boy, to his personal and political trials by fire, to the climactic battle with his rebellious barons where he finally comes of age, the young duke increasingly establishes himself as a force to be reckoned with. But as the shadowy intrigues of English politics, and the all-consuming question of an heir for a childless king, begin to draw him into their web, it may just be that William of Normandy has a destiny far greater than even he has ever dreamed.
The Merrow of Lake Michigan
Claire Fahey - 2015
The mayor of Chicago will be assassinated at the end of the week, and she is stuck in the year 1893. What she doesn’t know is how she landed 100 years back in time, or why Peter Hastings, the man trying to help her, shares some eerie similarities to her dead husband.When Joey, perhaps unwisely, revealed the year of her origins it didn’t sit well with her host. Her effort to convince him by predicting the mayor’s murder only made matters worse. Now her sanity is in question, and everything she does puts it further into doubt. One of the few bright spots in the whole situation is William, Peter’s five year-old son, but he is a stark reminder that she left a son of her own back in 1993. Stuck in the past and desperate to return to her own Chicago, Joey stumbles her way through a time when women had a barely-audible voice, and very few options. Armed with nothing but her wits, Joey must navigate the rigid waters of the Victorian era while she tries to prevent a murder and find her way home.
Betrothed
Elsa Holland - 2019
Fourteen years later the Petroski brothers arrived in London setting it alight with their breathtaking presence, bone melting accents and heart fluttering masculinity; eligible women were all interested in their availability. And yet the Prince’s betrothed, Miss Georgina Franklin, was yet to receive a visit.
Leave it to Birbal
Reena Ittyerah Puri
An honour not without hazards as half the nobles in the court had their knives out for him. According to legend, he was constantly being tested and made to prove himself - a challenge he took up readily.Amar Chitra Katha presents enthralling stories of the greatest wit in the Mughal Court./A
Lion of God: The Complete Trilogy
Stephen England - 2018
. .we do not forget."
It is the year 2000, and with the new millennium has come the fresh promise of peace in the Middle East.But when a pair of IDF reservists are brutally lynched in the West Bank town of Ramallah--the graphic imagery of their final moments broadcast around the Western world. . .all hopes of peace are shattered.As Israel mourns her dead and America attempts to salvage the peace process, the Mossad is tasked with finding and bringing to justice those responsible for the butchery, activating a Kidon team led by a young assassin known only as Ariel. . .The "Lion of God."But as the hunt narrows, it quickly becomes apparent that nothing is as it seems. And vengeance far from the only agenda in play. . .The Lion of God Trilogy represents an expansion of Stephen England's best-selling Shadow Warriors universe, and this volume includes all three previously-published individual episodes now compiled into a single volume.
Invasion
David Pilling - 2014
Due to the incompetence of Edward II's government, the north is virtually overrun by the Scots, while an invasion fleet is massing across the channel, led by Edward's estranged queen, Isabella, the 'She-Wolf of France'. The first book in the Folville's Law series follows the adventures of Sir John Swale, knight of Cumberland, as he investigates a murder that threatens to bring disaster to Edward's failing kingdom. Along the way he clashes with Eustace Folville and James Coterel, two of the most notorious and brutal outlaws in England. As the death toll mounts, it remains to be seen who will survive and who will perish in the savage game of war and politics. 'Folville's Law (I): Invasion' is a new edition of the first part of the John Swale Chronicles.
Daughter of Providence
Julie Drew - 2011
summer, 1934: Anne Dodge, raised by her old-money father in a small Rhode island coastal town, has always been told that her mother abandoned them. But then Anne learns that she has a half- sister, Maria Cristina --and when Maria Cristina comes to live with Anne and her father, ugly truths begin to surface about the family.Within a context of jazz, the end of Prohibition, and stifling gender expectations, Daughter of Providence is a gripping and seductive summer read. this story of loss and rediscovery will resonate with readers long after the final page.
The Refuge: My Journey to the Safe House for Battered Women
Jenny Smith - 2014
Chiswick Women's Aid was Europe's first ever refuge for what were then called 'battered women', and Jenny Smith was one of the first females who bravely made their way to this much-needed safe house. Desperate, and in fear for her life and the welfare of her two small children, Jenny had fled her dangerously schizophrenic partner, carrying only a few possessions. In the Chiswick shelter, founded by famous women's rights campaigner Erin Pizzey, Jenny found other women in the same position, all with harrowing, extraordinary stories to tell. Amenities were basic, but the respect, kindness and humanity of the community would help to give Jenny a new lease of life and strength. When the safe house came under threat of closure, she lobbied parliament and drove across Europe in a convoy of women in camper vans to raise awareness of their plight. Jenny's story is a slice of social history that begins in a Derbyshire mining village in the 1950s and takes the reader to inner city of Hackney in the 1960s, and Jenny's heart-breaking journey to the refuge. The house was the subject of a famous documentary, Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear, which, when first broadcast in 1974, sent shockwaves through the UK. Jenny was one of the first women to break a taboo by speaking publicly about domestic abuse. With the new start afforded her by the refuge, Jenny went on to find love, have another child and work as a foster carer.