historical fiction

VIETNAM WAR 

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances'Frankie' McGrath hears these unexpected words, it is a revelation. Raised on idyllic Coronado Island and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing, being a good girl. But in 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly imagines a different choice for her life. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war, as well as the unexpected trauma of coming home to a changed and politically divided America. 

ROMANIAN REVOLUTION 1989

In a country governed by isolation, fear, and a tyrannical dictator, seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer, but he decides to use his position to try to outwit his handler, undermine the regime, give voice to fellow Romanians, and expose to the world what is happening in his country. 

WORLD WAR II

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne says goodbye to her husband as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.

The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France–a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women.  

ANTEBELLUM AMERICA (1820- 1861)

A powerful piece of historical fiction set on a struggling sugar plantation in Louisiana before the Civil War. A compelling but sometimes heart-wrenching tale about the atrocities of American slavery and the abominable way in which they were treated. 

CIVIL RIGHTS ERA

In 1960s Mississippi, Southern society girl Skeeter returns from college with dreams of being a writer. She turns her small town on its ear by choosing to interview the Black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent white families. Only Aibileen, the housekeeper of Skeeter's best friend, will talk at first. But as the pair continue the collaboration, more women decide to come forward, and as it turns out, they have quite a lot to say. 

JIM CROW ERA

Set in the Jim Crow South, this novel focuses on a Black family striving for a better life in 1930s Jackson, Mississippi. The story follows 16-year-old Lamb, her mother Marion, and her brother Simeon, as they navigate the dangers and indignities of Jim Crow laws, with a particular focus on the threat of lynching. Lamb's life takes a tragic turn when she befriends a white girl, Marny, leading to a series of events that ultimately result in a lynching, pulling in other family members, including Lamb's uncle, father, and brother. 

REVOLUTIONARY WAR 

Set in 1776, thirteen-year-old Elsbeth struggles to find her missing father amidst the smallpox epidemic sweeping across Boston during the revolution.