Back in tiMe histORicaL FictiOn

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Lady In The Lake

Laura Lippman Maddie Schwartz is a 1960s Baltimore housewife who feels stuck. She wants to live a more interesting, passionate life, so she leaves her husband and moves out of their home to become a newspaper reporter after helping the police find a murdered young girl. When Maddie hears about the body of a young black woman found in a fountain in a city park, she begins searching for answers and soon finds that she’s obsessed with the case and will stop at nothing to find the truth, even if the dead doesn’t want her secrets to be told. This is perfect if you’re in the mood for a book that keeps you guessing and on your toes while still having those period details that make historical fiction shine.

This novel follows the Forsters through several generations, blending historical fiction and a family saga into a super readable pick! The Forster family invented Panola Cola, which is the world’s first-ever soft drink company. This decades-spanning novel tracks the Forsters from their life before the invention of the drink to the company’s hey day to the decline of the brand and the loss of the family fortune. This novel wizzes through history and places, spanning a century and jumping from Mississippi to New York to Paris and back again. AMERICAN POP is an interesting take on history, prominent families, what it’s like to run an internationally-known business and the way success can destroy people.

I love a novel based on true events, so this was right up my alley! A 1960s plane crash in France kills over a hundred of Atlanta’s wealthiest residents, who were all heading home from a cultural tour of Europe and have now left behind children, spouses, friends and entire lives. This all happens as Atlanta is on the cusp of immense social change as the Civil Rights Movement is gaining traction in the city. This novel follows those left behind and gives the perspectives of how the crash has changed the lives of a lot of seemingly different people. The focus on this isn’t so much the crash, which is just used as a plot device to set this story of love, wealth, race, and the South in motion.

When Obama puts a book on his summer reading list, then you know it’s gotta be good. It’s 1986 and America is deep in the throes of the Cold War. Marie Mitchell, an intelligence officer with the FBI is brilliant and more than capable, but she’s a young Black officer in a male-dominated profession. She’s discouraged by the lack of upward mobility and is often passed over for high profile assignments, stuck in the office doing paperwork and admin tasks. When she’s given the chance to join a task force to take down Thomas Sankara, the charasmatic Communist president of Burkina Faso, she says yes, even though she admires what Sankara is doing for his country. After all, it’s the only way to break away from her office duties! Over the next year, Marie is tasked with observing Thomas and ends up seducing him and staging a coup to take him down, sacrificing what she believes in in the process.

American Pop

Snowden Wright

Visible Empire

Hannah Pittard

American Spy

Lauren Wilkinson

BACK IN TIME BACK IN TIME BACK IN TIME Historical fiction and I have a complicated relationship. While I love history and nonfiction, I think HF can often get bogged down in the details. These 12 picks are in that sweet spot of having the perfect amount of detail and a page-turning plot.

The Travelers

Regina Porter Hands down one of the most unique books I’ve ever read! This novel follows two sides of a family, one black and one white, through six decades in America. We travel through Irish American family life to the South, where a beautiful Black woman survives a tragedy and makes her way to the Bronx to the air craft carriers of Vietnam. Each chapter is a story told by a different family member, and you see how their stories all intertwine and intersect. It almost feels like a series of short stories and can be read that way, but has maximum payoff when every piece of the story comes together. This is one of those books that requires a close read and a family tree in hand, but isn’t that all part of the fun?

THE SECRETS WE KEPT follows three women in America and the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. Olga is the mistress of Boris Pasternak. She refuses to betray him to Soviet officials, and as a result, he writes the legendary novel Doctor Zhivago, with the heroine inspired by Olga. Irina is the daughter of a Soviet seamstress living in 1950s Washington, D.C. She applies for a job in a typing pool, but is soon pulled into becoming a carrier for the CIA. Sally is a glamourous spy, who is tasked with helping to train Irina. Their mission? To smuggle the manuscript of Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR so it can be published around the world to turn people against communism.

Growing up in 1950s Detroit, Jo and Bethie seem to have the perfect all-American family. Jo’s the tomboy of the family who always has her nose in a book and is dedicated to making the world a better place, while Bethie is known for her beauty and star power. As they go through tragedies and traumas, their lives seem to pan out differently than they originally planned: Bethie becomes a wild child who won’t settle down, while Jo goes down the traditonal route, starting a family in Connecticut. They each realize that they’re unfullfilled in life and wonder if it’s too late to finally live the lives they’ve always dreamed of.

If you like New York City, magazines and the 1960s, you’ve gotta pick this one up! Alice is an aspiring photographer who takes a leap and moves from her small Ohio town to 1960s Manhattan. Using a connection forged by her late mother, she lands a job as the secretary for the new editor of Cosmopolitan, who is none other than Helen Gurley Brown (an IRL icon!). Brown is determined to change the magazine into one for modern women, much to the chagrin of Hearst. Alice is charged with supporting Helen as she defies orders and redefines Cosmopolitan forever. Along the way, Alice is drawn to and later propositioned by a man who wants her to serve as a spy, sabotaging Helen and reverting Cosmopolitan back to its old ways. Felt like a combo of Mad Men and The Devil Wears Prada and was impossible to put down!

The Secrets We Kept

Lara Prescott

Mrs. Everything

Jennifer Weiner

Park Avenue Summer

Libertie

Kaitlyn Greenidge Set in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn and then Haiti, LIBERTIE tells the unique story of Libertie, a girl whose mother is a practicing physician. While her mother expects her to follow in her footsteps, Libertie is more inclined to become a musician. To make matters worse, Libertie is constantly aware that she’s not light enough to pass like her mother can. When she receives a proposal from a Haitian man, she decides to accept and move overseas, where she realizes that she’s still not equal in her marriage, even in a place where she appears to physically fit in. The writing is beautiful, the plot is unique and interesting and I loved getting to follow Libertie’s story from childhood through her adult years.

Rose Baker is a typist for the NYPD. She takes down confessions from criminals, but once she leaves the office, she leads a refined and simple life. That is, until Odalie joins the force. Rose is soon drawn into a world of glamour, jazz and speakeasies, a far cry from the quiet life she once lived. And as Rose becomes closer and closer to Odalie, she soon becomes obsessed, changing her world forever. This is a good mix between noir, historical fiction and thriller so it’s bound to be a crowd-pleaser! The period details are on point and the mystery woven throughout is engrossing. You’re gonna want to pair this one with a martini and some jazz!

Gloria, a teenage girl who has been brutally raped and attacked, shows up on Mary Rose Whitehead’s porch in the early hours of the morning the day after Valentine’s Day. This event changes the lives of the women of 1970s Odessa, Texas, a city on the verge of an oil boom. Gloria is Mexican and the man who attacked her is white, adding another layer to the already controversial case, as many in Odessa are prepared to fiercely protect Gloria’s attacker. VALENTINE is a contemplative novel, told from the perspectives of women from the town, ranging from Gloria and Mary Rose to Debra Ann, a ten-year-old girl who is spending her summer secretly helping a homeless veteran and Corrine, a recent widow who finds herself sucked into the case.

Anna fondly remembers going with her father to visit Dexter Styles, one of his business associates, when she was young. She never knew what occured during these meetings, but she holds these memories close to her heart. Years later, Anna’s father has disappeared and America is at war. She nabs a job at Brooklyn’s Naval Yard, where women are allowed to do the jobs men left behind while at war. She becomes the first female diver and loves her work, helping repair ships that have been destroyed on the warfront. When she meets Dexter Styles at a club one night, she begins to understand some secrets about her father that have plagued her for years. I loved this look into New York City at wartime, with the contrasting details about everything from gangsters and glamorous clubs to soldiers, sailors and divers.

The Other Typist

Suzanne Rindell

Valentine

Elizabeth Wetmore

Manhattan Beach

Jennifer Egan