Archives de catégorie : Historical Fiction

THE WHARTON PLOT de Mariah Fredericks

Mariah Fredericks’ mesmerizing novel follows renowned novelist Edith Wharton in the twilight years of the Gilded Age in New York as she tracks a killer.

THE WHARTON PLOT
by Mariah Fredericks
Minotaur Books, January 2024
(via Levine Greenberg Rostan)

New York City, 1911. Edith Wharton, almost equally famed for her novels and her sharp tongue, is bone-tired of Manhattan. Finding herself at a crossroads with both her marriage and her writing, she makes the decision to leave America, her publisher, and her loveless marriage.

And then, dashing novelist David Graham Phillips―a writer with often notorious ideas about society and women’s place in it―is shot to death outside the Princeton Club. Edith herself met the man only once, when the two formed a mutual distaste over tea in the Palm Court of the Belmont hotel. When Phillips is killed, Edith’s life takes another turn. His sister is convinced Graham was killed by someone determined to stop the publication of his next book, which promised to uncover secrets that powerful people would rather stayed hidden. Though unconvinced, Edith is curious. What kind of book could push someone to kill?

Inspired by a true story, THE WHARTON PLOT follows Edith Wharton through the fading years of the Gilded Age in a city she once loved so well, telling a taut tale of fame, love, and murder, as she becomes obsessed with solving a crime.

“Superb . . . Thanks to a literary plot laced with arch wit and precise put-downs, appearances by Wharton’s famous friends (including Henry James and the Vanderbilts), and an eclectic assortment of the upper crust in the waning days of a varnished era, Fredericks hits this one out of the park.”―Library Journal (Starred Review)

“THE WHARTON PLOT a vivid, fascinating, entertaining mystery. Readers looking for a bit of history with their suspense will be gripped.”―Publishers Weekly

« Fredericks’ elegantly written narrative gives a lively look at an author way ahead of her time. »―Kirkus Reviews

« Written with grace and wit, THE WHARTON PLOT is a pleasure to read. »―Wall Street Journal

« Based on the real murder of Phillips, Fredericks’ latest will especially appeal to bibliophiles, who will enjoy reading tidbits about the real-life authors who appear. »―Booklist

Mariah Fredericks was born, raised, and still lives in New York City. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history. She is the author of the Jane Prescott mystery series, which has twice been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award, as well as several YA novels.

THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD de Michael Callahan

A tantalizing novel of two women bound by blood but divided by a long-buried secret, and the island that holds the key to the fateful summer that changed everything forever.

THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD
by Michael Callahan
Mariner, May 2024
(via Dystel Goderich & Bourret)

In 1959, Hollywood ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director. Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace, just as her career is taking off.

Almost sixty years later, Kit O’Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother’s attic only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles.

Putting her investigative skills to use, Kit is determined to solve the riddle of her grandmother’s missing life, and the trail eventually leads to Martha’s Vineyard.

Mercy retreats to the island nursing a broken heart, only to be drawn to the roguish Ren Sewards, who is not just the simple oysterman he appears to be but a scion of one of the island’s wealthy founding families. With her attraction to Ren quickly growing, Mercy soon finds herself entangled in the intrigues of the tightly knit community—and the secrets of the Sewards

Alternating between Mercy and Kit’s timelines, including excerpts from letters Mercy wrote the summer she disappeared, THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD unfurls into a heart-stopping story of love, betrayal, and even murder.

A Publishers Marketplace 2024 Highly Anticipated Buzz Book

“Compelling and evocative, THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD is a page turner of the highest order. Michael Callahan’s novel does what few books do; it glued me to my seat. It is a great mystery with great insight into the secrets everybody keeps. » — Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Resurrection Walk

“I was completely captivated by Michael Callahan’s THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD. It’s a history mystery you won’t be able to put down, with strong female characters and plenty of secrets. Plus, it takes you behind the scenes in vintage Hollywood and Martha’s Vineyard. A perfect beach read!” — Lisa Scottoline, #1 bestselling author of Loyalty and The Truth About the Devlins

“Michael Callahan’s THE LOST LETTERS FROM MARTHA’S VINEYARD grabs from the first line and doesn’t let go until the last. This delicious mystery will be a particular treat for fans (guilty!) of vintage Hollywood and Nancy Drew.” — Louis Bayard, author of The Pale Blue Eye and The Wildes

« Callahan skillfully blends notes of mystery and romance in this layered story of family secrets. Readers will have a hard time putting it down. » — Publishers Weekly

“Callahan blends mid-century Hollywood glamour and family secrets in this fast-paced, dual-period novel. He captures the historical era in colorful detail, and both women are determined, appealing characters who struggle with their personal and professional lives. Readers who enjoy Beatriz Williams and Crystal Smith Paul will be enthralled.” — Booklist

« A breezy, atmospheric novel dripping with secrets… smooth and suspenseful—and hard to stop reading once you’ve begun. » — Kirkus Reviews

Michael Callahan is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Searching for Grace Kelly and The Night She Won Miss America, as well as a coffee-table history of the famed Musso & Frank Grill restaurant in Hollywood. A contributing editor at Vanity Fair, his work has been published in Esquire, Town & Country, and the New York Times, among others. He lives in Los Angeles.

DAUGHTERS OF CHAOS de Jen Fawkes

A spellbinding story about a renowned Nashville brothel during the Civil War, a centuries-old secret society, and the earth-shaking power of women—charged with suspense, mystery, and sapphic romance.

DAUGHTERS OF CHAOS
by Jen Fawkes
The Overlook Press, July 2024

The year is 1862, and the United States Civil War is in full force. After a harrowing tragedy at home, 19-year-old Sylvie Swift finds herself living in a brothel in Nashville, the Union headquarters, a river city overflowing with soldiers, commanders, politicians, and powerful men––and powerful women. Targeted by a Union colonel and trained to be a spy against suspected Confederate secret societies, Sylvie suddenly finds herself neck-deep in an underground world she never expected: Also at work in Nashville is a centuries-old feminist cult populated by the women Sylvie thought she knew, including Hannah, a revolutionary with whom Sylvie falls headfirst into a heart-wrenching romance. She soon becomes entwined in the lives of the Daughters of Chaos, steadfast in their centuries-long mission to confront and eradicate the injustices enacted by the men who think they’re in charge.

Inspired both by Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, about women who strategically withhold sex from their warring men, and by the true story of Nashville’s attempt to ban its “public women” during wartime, DAUGHTERS OF CHAOS journeys through Ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and American history as Sylvie navigates the complex mythology of this secret world of women against the backdrop of a transformative American conflict.

Jen Fawkes is the author of Mannequin and Wife, a 2020 Shirley Jackson Award Nominee, winner of the 2023 Phillip H. McMath Post-Publication Book Award, and Foreword INDIES gold medalist. Her collection Tales the Devil Told Me was a Foreword INDIES silver medal recipient, Largehearted Boy Favorite Collection of 2021, and finalist for the 2022 World Fantasy Award for Single-Author Story Collection. Her fiction won the 2021 Porter Fund Literary Prize and has appeared in One Story, Lit Hub, The Iowa Review, Crazyhorse, Best Small Fictions, and more. A two-time finalist for the Calvino Prize for fabulist fiction, Jen lives in Little Rock, Arkansas.

WESTFALLEN d’Ann Brashares et Ben Brashares

A mind-bending, time-warp, action-packed new middle-grade trilogy from #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants author Ann Brashares and her brother Ben Brashares! Six well-meaning kids change the course of history in the worst possible way, in a thrilling new story that asks what life would be like today had Germany won World War II. Welcome to WESTFALLEN!

WESTFALLEN
by Ann Brashares and Ben Brashares
Simon & Schuster, September 2024
(via Writers House)

Henry, Frances, and Lukas are neighbours, and they used to be best friends. But in middle school Frances became too cool, Lukas got into baseball, and Henry just felt left behind. When a dead gerbil brings them together again for a pet funeral, the three ex-friends make a mind-blowing discovery: a radio, buried in Henry’s backyard, that allows them to talk to another group of kids in the same town . . . in the same backyard . . . eighty years in the past.

The kids in 1944 want to know about the future: are there jetpacks? Laser guns? Is there teleportation? Most of all, they want to know about the outcome of the world war their dad and brothers are fighting in. Henry is cautious—he’s seen movies about what happens when you disrupt the fabric of time—but figures there’s no harm in telling them a little bit. And, at first, nothing changes—well, nothing big, anyway.

Until one conversation between the new friends changes history in the biggest way possible. And now it’s up to Henry, Frances, and Lukas to change it back.

Ann Brashares is the author of the global phenomenon Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, as well as several other novels. Before becoming a writer, she was a student of philosophy, a receptionist, an editor, a ghostwriter, and, briefly, the copresident of a small media company.

Ben Brashares is the author of Being Edie Is Hard Today and The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection. He holds an MFA in creative writing and has worked at and written for several magazines, including Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, and Entertainment Weekly.

THE ANCIENT’S GAME de Loni Crittenden

Alchemy and ancient spirits come to life in this debut fantasy inspired by African Diasporic folklore and the 1920s World Fair, wherein sixteen-year-old Kellan DuCuivre, an orphan from a reviled class, must compete for a coveted apprenticeship among the nation’s elite in order to save her adopted father from a twisted fate.

THE ANCIENT’S GAME
by Loni Crittenden
HarperTeen, October 2024

In THE ANCIENT’S GAME, readers will find themselves on the edge of their seats as Kellan competes in The Gauntlet, a thrilling test of wits and skill wherein eight apprentices studying in the alchemic art of makecraft must compete for a coveted spot among its Guild of Engineers—only for the tests to take a series of deadly turns.

The love stories centered in THE ANCIENT’S GAME touch upon a range of relationships, from familial love in Kellan’s quest to save her adopted father, the love between friends and found families, and the tender, friendship to romantic relationship that’s cultivated when Kellan encounters Axel Bonne, the illegitimate son of the vicious head of the House Bonne, a family of makers renowned for their runework inventions.

With its 1920s World’s Fair inspired setting and thrilling, death-defying gauntlet competition, THE ANCIENT’S GAME is the perfect read for fans of These Violent Delights, Iron Widow, and Dread Nation.

Loni Crittenden is a writer from Buffalo, New York. She has a BA in creative writing from SUNY Oswego and an MFA in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University. When she’s not glued to her laptop, you can find her nursing various cat-inflicted wounds, planning on painting again someday maybe, and hunting for unusually flavored teas.