Staff Picks
Broader Bookshelf 2026: Read a love story (Historical Fiction)
Collection
All these historical fiction titles fulfill the 2026 Broader Bookshelf Reading Challenge's prompt #6: Read a love story.
Call Me by Your Name
Published in 2007
The sudden and powerful attraction between a teenage boy and a summer guest at his parents' house on the Italian Riviera has a profound and lasting influence that will mark them both for a lifetime.
Loving Eleanor
Published in 2016
When AP political reporter Lorena Hickok -- Hick -- is assigned to cover Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1932 campaign, the two women become deeply involved. Their relationship begins with mutual romantic passion, matures through stormy periods of enforced separation and competing interests, and warms into an enduring, encompassing friendship documented by 3300 letters. Set during the chaotic years of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Second World War, Loving Eleanor reveals Eleanor Roosevelt as a complex, contradictory, and entirely human woman who is pulled in many directions by her obligations to her husband and family and her role as the nation's First Lady. Hick is revealed as an accomplished journalist, who, at the pinnacle of her career, gives it all up for the woman she loves. Then, as Eleanor is transformed into Eleanor Everywhere, First Lady of the World, Hick must create her own independent, productive life.
Giovanni's Room
Published in 2013
"Set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality"--Page 4 of cover.
Bittersweet
Published in 2001
Courting Mr. Lincoln
A Novel
Published in 2019
"A miracle; an exquisite story exquisitely told . . . If you love Jane Austen, or Hamilton , or fiction--of any era--that transports and transforms in equal measure, look no further." --A.J. Finn, bestselling author of The Woman in the Window From the prizewinning author of Mr. Timothy and The Pale Blue Eye comes Courting Mr. Lincoln , the page-turning and surprising story of a young Abraham Lincoln and the two people who loved him best: a young, marriageable Mary Todd and Lincoln's best friend, Joshua Speed. When sparky and independent Mary Todd arrives in Springfield, Illinois, in the 1840s to live with her sister, who is determined to find Mary a husband, she is astonished to find herself drawn to an awkward, melancholic lawyer with a gift for oratory. The two share ambition, an obsession with politics--and a need to be suitably married off. Always at Lincoln's side, however, is the charming Joshua Speed, a shopkeeper who became his mentor in society, loyal friend, roommate--and possible lover. Told in alternating chapters from the points of view of Todd and Speed, this witty, psychologically astute, and brilliantly plotted novel follows the threesome during Todd and Lincoln's tumultuous courtship, with all the suspense and delight of the best Jane Austen novels. Historians have long speculated that Lincoln and Speed had a romantic relationship, and here Bayard explores that forbidden possibility with deep empathy. Rich with both period detail and contemporary insight, Courting Mr. Lincoln offers smart storytelling at the highest level.
The Sandcastle Girls
A Novel
Published in 2012
"Parallel stories of a woman who falls in love with an Armenian soldier during the Armenian Genocide and a modern-day New Yorker prompted to rediscover her Armenian past"-- Provided by publisher.
Letters from Skye
A Novel
Published in 2013
A love story told in letters spans two world wars and follows the correspondence between a poet on the Scottish Isle of Skye and an American volunteer ambulance driver for the French Army, an affair that is discovered years later when the poet disappears.
Songs in Ursa Major
Published in 2021
"A scintillating debut from a major new voice in fiction, alive with music, sex, and fame, Songs in Ursa Major is a love story set in 1969 at the crossroads of rock and folk, for fans of Daisy Jones & The Six"-- Provided by publisher.
Pages for Her
Published in 2017
"Pages for Her is the story of two women, Flannery and Anne, each at a personal turning point, and the circumstances that lead to their reunion. Twenty years after their brief but passionate affair, chronicled in Brownrigg's earlier novel Pages for You, Flannery has the chance once again to meet Anne, who opened young Flannery up to the possibility of love-then left her heartbroken. Having long ago put their love behind them, they live now on opposite coasts. Anne has been in a deep, childless partnership with a fellow scholar Jasper, who recently left her. Flannery, to her own surprise, married a charismatic artist named Charles, with whom she has a young daughter. Submerged by her husband's demands and personality and her adjustment to motherhood, Flannery has lost sight of her self and her work. When the two women meet at a conference, they find that the passion and understanding between them has endured, though it has been hidden. In rediscovering each other, they are able to rediscover themselves. Pages for Her is an exhilarating, passionate work that explores marriage, sexuality, and the transformative power of love over time"-- Provided by publisher.
What I Know About You
Published in 2024
"A heartbreaking tale of a family and an impossible love, torn apart by secrets and traditions in late-twentieth-century Cairo. In a tight-knit Levantine Christian family in 1960s Cairo, Tarek's entire life is written in advance. He'll be a doctor like his father, marry, and have children. Under the watchful eye of the family's strong women, he starts to do just that - until a patient's son, Ali, enters his life and turns it upside down. The two men's unsayable relationship sparks a series of events as dramatic as the Six-Day War and assassination of President Anwar Sadat playing out in the background. The turn of the millennium finds Tarek living as a doctor in Montreal. Someone is writing about him and to him, piecing together a past he wants only to forget. But who is the writer of this tale? And will Tarek figure it out in time? From Cairo's grand boulevards and hidden alleys to Montreal's grim winter, from the reign of Nasser to the early 2000s, What I Know About You tells the heartbreaking story of a family torn apart by an epic love. A bestseller in its original Quebec edition, and the recipient of several awards, including the Prix Femina, What I Know About You is poised to be an international sensation."-- Provided by publisher.
Homeseeking
Published in 2025
Separated by war and reunited after 60 years, Haiwen and Suchi navigate decades of love, loss and survival across continents, as their shared past clashes with their hopes for a second chance at life.
The Patchwork Bride
Published in 2018
Ellen is putting the finishing touches on a wedding quilt made from scraps of old dresses when the bride-to-be-her granddaughter June-unexpectedly arrives and announces she's calling off the marriage. With the tending of June's uncertain heart in mind, Ellen tells her the story of Nell, a Kansas-born woman who goes to the High Plains of New Mexico Territory in 1898 in search of a husband. Working as a biscuit-shooter, Nell falls for a cowboy named Buddy. She sees a future together, but she can't help wondering if his feelings for her are true. When Buddy breaks her heart, she runs away. In her search for a soul mate, Nell will run away from marriage twice more before finding the love of her life. It's a tale filled with excitement, heartbreak, disappointment, and self-discovery-as well as with hard-earned life lessons about love. Another stunning, emotional novel from a master storyteller.
The Tree and the Vine
Published in 1996
A lesbian love story set during the Nazi occupation of Holland. One of them is a Jew and the other tries to help her escape. By the author of The Field.
The Mercy of Thin Air
A Novel
Published in 2005
Following her death in 1920s New Orleans, beautiful Raziela chooses to remain in The Between--a place between life and death--rather than pass on to what lies ahead, hoping to find out what happened to her beloved Andrew.
Learned by Heart
Published in 2023
"Drawing on years of investigation and Anne Lister's five-million-word secret journal, Learned by Heart is the long-buried love story of Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England at age six, and Anne Lister, a brilliant, troublesome tomboy, who meet at the Manor School for young ladies in York in 1805 when they are both fourteen. Emotionally intense, psychologically compelling, and deeply researched, Learned by Heart is an extraordinary work of fiction by one of the world's greatest storytellers. Full of passion and heartbreak, the tangled lives of Anne Lister and Eliza Raine form a love story for the age"-- Provided by publisher.
Love and Other Consolation Prizes
A Novel
Published in 2017
"Inspired by a true story, this is the unforgettable story of a young boy named Ernest, set during the 1909 Seattle world's fair called the Alaska Yukon Pacific Expo. It is a time when the magical wonders of technology on display at the expo future seems limitless. But for Ernest, a half-Chinese orphan who found his way to America through a last desperate act of his beloved mother, every door is closed. A charity student at a boarding school, he has never really had a place to call home. Then one day, his wealthy sponsor announces that if a home is what he wants, then that is what he will have: Ernest will be offered as a prize in the daily raffle at the fair, advertised as "Healthy boy to a good home for the winning ticket holder." The woman who "wins" him is the madam of a notorious brothel who was famous for educating her girls. He becomes a houseboy in her brothel and is befriended by the daughter of the madam, as well as a Japanese girl who works in the kitchen. The friendship and love between these three form the first real family Ernest has ever known"-- Provided by publisher.
Maurice
A Novel
Published in 2006
"Set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life, this story by a master novelist introduces us to Maurice Hall when he is fourteen. We follow him through public school and Cambridge, and into his father's firm. In a highly structured society, Maurice is a conventional young man in almost every way-- except that he is homosexual. Written during 1913 and 1914, immediately after Howards End, and not published until 1971, Maurice was ahead of its time in its affirmation that love between men can be happy. 'Happiness, ' Forster wrote, "is its keynote ... In Maurice I tried to create a character who was completely unlike myself or what I supposed myself to be: someone handsome, healthy, bodily attractive, mentally torpid, not a bad businessman and rather a snob. Into this mixture I dropped an ingredient that puzzles him, wakes him up, torments him and finally saves him"--Page 4 of cover
The Kites
Published in 2017
The Sky over Lima
Published in 2016
"A retelling of a fantastical true story: two young men seduce Nobel laureate Juan Ramon Jiménez with the words of an imaginary woman and inspire one of his greatest love poems. Jose Galvez and Carlos Rodriguez are poets. Or, at least, they'd like to be. Sons of Lima's elite in the early twentieth century, they scribble bad verses and read the greats: Rilke, Rimbaud, and, above all others, Juan Ramon Jiménez, the Spanish Maestro. Desperate for Jiménez's latest work, unavailable in Lima, they decide to ask him for a copy. They're sure Jiménez won't send two dilettantes his book, but he might favor a beautiful woman. They write to him as the lovely, imaginary Georgina Hubner. Jiménez responds with a letter and a book. Elated, Jose and Carlos write back. Their correspondence continues, as the Maestro falls in love with Georgina, and the boys abandon poetry for the pages of Jiménez's life."-- Provided by publisher.
A Place for Us
Published in 2025
Jo, a driven environmental attorney based in Washington, DC, and Lauren, a spirited young woman from Britain on a journey of self-discovery, find themselves in a serendipitous encounter at a lively London pub in 1981. Their brief yet profound connection generates a whirlwind of emotions, but the vast ocean, Jo's career aspirations, and immigration hurdles thwart their burgeoning romance. Fast forward twenty-two years, and both Jo and Lauren are unhappy in their current relationships. Fate intervenes when Lauren and her partner travel from Europe to visit Jo in her San Francisco home. The reunion is electric, rekindling a storm of emotions that neither can suppress, despite their efforts to honor their existing commitments. Amid the majestic backdrops of Yosemite National Park and the Pacific Northwest, old passions can’t be denied, leading to dramatic confrontations and painful revelations. Jo and Lauren finally realize they must admit the truth: they are irresistibly drawn to each other. But there is no country in which they can legally live together.
The Outlaw Noble Salt
A Novel
Published in 2024
"When infamous outlaw Butch Cassidy decides to go straight, he discovers that too many of the powerful men he crossed won't let bygones be bygones. To have a chance at a new life, he'll have to become someone else entirely. A brief, fateful encounter with the celebrated singer Jane Touissant on the eve of his escape offers a glimpse of what might have been, but Butch disappears, leaving her behind, until their paths unexpectedly converge again in Paris. Despite having discovered his true identity, Jane trusts the outlaw and enlists his protection on her upcoming American tour. Although Butch is reluctant to agree, fearing his sordid past may put the woman and her young son in danger, the salvation she offers is too hard to resist. As they set forth on their journey, Butch's past and Jane's secrets put them at risk from threats far greater than the law, and this legend of the American West will have to decide what matters most-his life, his legacy, or the woman he loves"-- Provided by publisher.
Becoming Mrs. Lewis
The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis
Published in 2018
"From New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan comes an exquisite novel of Joy Davidman, the woman C. S. Lewis called 'my whole world.' When poet and writer Joy Davidman began writing letters to C. S. Lewis--known as Jack--she was looking for spiritual answers, not love. Love, after all, wasn't holding together her crumbling marriage. Everything about New Yorker Joy seemed ill-matched for an Oxford don and the beloved writer of Narnia, yet their minds bonded over their letters. Embarking on the adventure of her life, Joy traveled from America to England and back again, facing heartbreak and poverty, discovering friendship and faith, and against all odds, finding a love that even the threat of death couldn't destroy. In this masterful exploration of one of the greatest love stories of modern times, we meet a brilliant writer, a fiercely independent mother, and a passionate woman who changed the life of this respected author and inspired books that still enchant us and change us. Joy lived at a time when women weren't meant to have a voice--and yet her love for Jack gave them both voices they didn't know they had. At once a fascinating historical novel and a glimpse into a writer's life, Becoming Mrs. Lewis is above all a love story--a love of literature and ideas and a love between a husband and wife that, in the end, was not impossible at all." -- Amazon.
The Marriage of Opposites
A Novel
Published in 2015
"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things: a forbidden love story set on the tropical island of St. Thomas about the extraordinary woman who gave birth to painter Camille Pissarro the Father of Impressionism"-- Provided by publisher.
Under the Wide and Starry Sky
A Novel
Published in 2013
"In her new novel, Nancy Horan has recreated a love story that is as unique, passionate, and overwhelmingly powerful as the one between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney depicted so memorably in Loving Frank. Under the Wide and Starry Sky chronicles the unconventional love affair of Scottish literary giant Robert Louis Stevenson, author of classics including Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and American divorcee Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne. They meet in rural France in 1875, when Fanny, having run away from her philandering husband back in California, takes refuge there with her children. Stevenson too is escaping from his life, running from family pressure to become a lawyer. And so begins a turbulent love affair that will last two decades and span the world."-- Provided by publisher.
The Light Always Breaks
Published in 2022
"In her distinctive Southern literary style, award-winning author Angela Jackson-Brown delivers a moving story of a star-crossed romance and the way love has the power to change everything"-- Provided by publisher.
Swimming in the Dark
A Novel
Published in 2021
"Set in early 1980s Poland against the violent decline of Communism, a tender and passionate story of first love between two young men who eventually find themselves on opposite sides of the political divide--a stunningly poetic and heartrending literary debut for fans of André Aciman, Garth Greenwell, and Alan Hollinghurst. When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this handsome, carefree stranger. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair. After their camp duties are fulfilled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks in the countryside, bonding over an illicit copy of James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. Inhabiting a beautiful, natural world removed from society and its constraints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. But in their repressive Communist and Catholic society, the passion they share is utterly unthinkable. Once they return to Warsaw, the charismatic Janusz quickly rises in the political ranks of the party and is rewarded with a highly coveted government position. Ludwik is drawn toward impulsive acts of protest, unable to ignore rising food prices and the stark economic disparity around them. Their secret love and personal and political differences slowly begin to tear them apart as both men struggle to survive in a regime on the brink of collapse. Shifting from the intoxication of first love to the quiet melancholy of growing up and growing apart, Swimming in the Dark is a potent blend of romance, postwar politics, intrigue, and history. Lyrical and sensual, immersive and intense, Tomasz Jedrowski's indelible and thought-provoking literary debut explores freedom and love in all its incarnations."--From amazon.com.
The Kommandant's Girl
Published in 2018
Nineteen-year-old Emma Bau has been married only three weeks when Nazi tanks thunder into her native Poland. Within days Emma's husband, Jacob, is forced to disappear underground, leaving her imprisoned within the city's decrepit Jewish ghetto. But then, in the dead of night, the resistance smuggles her out. Taken to Krakow to live with Jacobs Catholic aunt, Krysia, Emma takes on a new identity as Anna Lipowski, a gentile. Emma's already precarious situation is complicated by her introduction to Kommandant Richwalder, a high-ranking Nazi official who hires her to work as his assistant. Urged by the resistance to use her position to access details of the Nazi occupation, Emma must compromise her safety and her marriage vows in order to help Jacobs cause. As the atrocities of war intensify, Emma must make choices that will force her to risk not only her double life, but also the lives of those she loves.
American Romantic
Published in 2014
The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years
A Novel
Published in 2024
"Rebecca meets Fatima Farheen Mirza in this sweeping, gorgeously atmospheric novel about a ruined mansion by the sea, and a young girl who unearths the true story of the tragedy that happened there a hundred years ago Akbar Manzil was once a grand estate off the coast of South Africa. Now, nearly a century since it was built, it stands in ruins-a boardinghouse for misfits, where people come to forget or be forgotten. Seeking a new home after a painful tragedy, Sana and her effusive father are Akbar Manzil's newest residents. There they find a community of eccentrics, each suffering their own losses and likewise searching for something-escape, solace, absolution. As Sana becomes increasingly entwined in their stories, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to the history of the mansion itself: to the overgrown garden and its strange assortment of bones; to the eerie and forgotten East Wing, home to a clutter of broken and abandoned objects; and to a dusty old bedroom, unopened for decades, where she finds faded photographs of Akbar Manzil's first residents and a worn diary with entries she cannot translate. As she explores the mansion's whispering corners, she dredges up its longest resident: a djinn, the only remnant of Akbar Manzil's dark past. With its help, she discovers the story of a young woman named Meena from a hundred years prior, the original owner's second wife, who lived in the East Wing at the height of Akbar Manzil's glory, whose tragic fate is the house's ultimate secret-and whose story is the answer that Sana had been searching for all along. Sublime, heart-wrenching, and lyrically stunning-with a cast of characters that will have you crying from both laughter and sorrow-Paper Flowers is a haunting, a love story, and a mystery, all twined beautifully into one young girl's search for belonging"-- Provided by publisher.
The Umbrella Maker's Son
A Novel of WWII
Published in 2025
"A novel following the odyssey of a 17-year-old at the outset of WWII from the occupied Krakow ghetto to the Polish countryside and finally to the arms of the young woman he's loved since childhood; a story of survival against all odds, guided by the transformative power of love. Born to a middle class Polish Jewish family, Reuven grows up admiring his father, the respected businessman who owns the local shop that produces beautiful handmade umbrellas. The family's peaceful life begins to unravel as the Nazis infiltrate the town, take over the business, and eventually persecute Reuven and all other Jews. One night, Zelda, the girl who seven-year-old Reuven loves, disappears with her family; soon thereafter, Reuven and his father are conscripted by the Nazis into backbreaking physical labor that almost kills them. Clearly, they must escape-and some of them will die trying. What ensues is a fast paced, but heartfelt and lovely, story of survival and hope. Reuven is saved by a local farmer who has never met a Jew before-mostly because he wants him to help work the farm. Meanwhile, the farmer's wife has other ideas about Reuven-which lead to his desperate escape further into the countryside, and eventually to a local town where he hopes to reconnect with Zelda, herself forever changed by her experiences of war."-- Provided by publisher.
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
A Novel
Published in 2024
"It's never too late for new beginnings. On the cusp of turning eighty, newly retired pharmacist Augusta Stern is adrift. When she relocates to Rallentando Springs-an active senior community in southern Florida-she unexpectedly crosses paths with Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father's old pharmacy-and the man who broke her heart sixty years earlier. As a teenager growing up in 1920's Brooklyn, Augusta's role model was her father, Solomon Stern, the trusted owner of the local pharmacy and the neighborhood expert on every ailment. But when Augusta's mother dies and Great Aunt Esther moves in, Augusta can't help but be drawn to Esther's curious methods. As a healer herself, Esther offers Solomon's customers her own advice-unconventional remedies ranging from homemade chicken soup to a mysterious array of powders and potions. As Augusta prepares for pharmacy college, she is torn between loyalty to her father and fascination with her great aunt, all while navigating a budding but complicated relationship with Irving. Desperate for clarity, she impulsively uses Esther's most potent elixir with disastrous consequences. Disillusioned and alone, Augusta vows to reject Esther's enchantments forever. Sixty years later, confronted with Irving, Augusta is still haunted by the mistakes of her past. What happened all those years ago and how did her plan go so spectacularly wrong? Did Irving ever truly love her or was he simply playing a part? And can Augusta reclaim the magic of her youth before it's too late?"-- Provided by publisher.
The Golden Age
Published in 2016
Escaping the perils of World War II Hungary for Australia, Frank is diagnosed with polio and sent to a children's hospital where he falls in love with a fellow patient while their families struggle to adjust to life in a new culture.
The Bookman's Tale
A Novel of Obsession
Published in 2013
After the death of his wife, Peter Byerly, a young antiquarian bookseller, relocates from the States to the English countryside, where he hopes to rediscover the joys of life through his passion for collecting and restoring rare books. But when he opens an eighteenth-century study on Shakespeare forgeries, he is shocked to find a Victorian portrait strikingly similar to his wife tumble out of its pages, and becomes obsessed with tracking down its origins. As he follows the trail back to the nineteenth century and then to Shakespeare's time, Peter learns the truth about his own past and unearths a book that might prove that Shakespeare was indeed the author of all his plays.
Songs for the Butcher's Daughter
A Novel
Published in 2008
Summer, sweltering, 1996. A book warehouse in western Massachusetts. A man at the beginning of his adult life -- and the end of his career rope -- becomes involved with a woman, a language, and a great lie that will define his future. Most auspiciously of all, he runs across Itsik Malpesh, a ninetysomething Russian immigrant who claims to be the last Yiddish poet in America. When a set of accounting ledgers in which Malpesh has written his memoirs surfaces -- twenty-two volumes brimming with adventure, drama, deception, passion, and wit -- the young man is compelled to translate them, telling Malpesh's story as his own life unfolds, and bringing together two paths that coincide in shocking and unexpected ways.--from Publisher description (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0838/2007049787-d.html).
Box Hill
A Story of Low Self-esteem
Published in 2020
"In Box Hill, a vivid coming-of-age novel, a young man suddenly wakes up to his gay self--on his eighteenth birthday, when he receives the best gift ever: love and sex. In the woodsy cruising grounds of Box Hill, chubby Colin literally stumbles over glamorous Ray--ten years older, leather-clad, cool, handsome, a biker, and a top. (Colin, if largely unformed, is nevertheless decidedly a bottom.) Colin narrates his love--conveying how mind-blowing being with Ray is--in comically humble-pie terms. "If there are leaders then there must be followers, and I had followership skills in plenty just waiting to be tapped. To this day I can't see a fat kid in shorts without wanting to rush over and give him what comfort I can. To tell him it won't always be like this." Mars-Jones uses Colin's naivete to give a fresh view of the world and of love. Before long, however, homophobia, class, family strife, and loss rear their ugly heads. Yet in the end, it seems Colin's modest view oddly takes in the widest horizon: he learns that "people can care about anything." A surprise and a pleasure, Box Hill is an intensely moving short novel"-- Provided by publisher.
Titans
Published in 2016
"A sweeping new drama from the beloved, bestselling author of Roses. Texas in the early 1900s, its inhabitants still traveling by horseback and barely familiar with the telephone, was on the cusp of an oil boom that, unbeknownst to its residents, would spark a period of dramatic changes and economic growth. In the midst of this transformative time in Southern history, two unforgettable characters emerge and find their fates irrevocably intertwined: Samantha Gordon, the privileged heiress to the sprawling Las Tres Lomas cattle ranch near Fort Worth, and Nathan Holloway, a sweet-natured and charming farm boy from far north Texas. As changes sweep the rustic countryside, Samantha and Nathan's connection drives this narrative compulsively forward as they love, lose, and betray. In this grand yet intimate novel, Meacham once again delivers a heartfelt, big-canvas story full of surprising twists and deep emotional resonance"-- Provided by publisher.
A True Novel
Published in 2013
The Tattooist of Auschwitz
A Novel
Published in 2018
"In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism--but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive. One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her"--Dust jacket flap.
Jazz
Published in 1992
The Lonely Hearts Hotel
Published in 2017
"With echoes of The Night Circus, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans -in love with each other since they can remember-whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future. The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one's origins. It might also take true love. Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1914. Before long, their talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen. Separated as teenagers, sent off to work as servants during the Great Depression, both descend into the city's underworld, dabbling in sex, drugs and theft in order to survive. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes -after years of searching and desperate poverty -the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they'll go to extreme lengths to make them come true. Soon, Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls have hit New York, commanding the stage as well as the alleys, and neither the theater nor the underworld will ever look the same. With her musical language and extravagantly realized world, Heather O'Neill enchants us with a novel so magical there is no escaping its spell"-- Provided by publisher.
The Invisible Bridge
Published in 2010
An unforgettable story of three brothers, of history and love, of marriage tested by disaster, of a Jewish family's struggle against annihilation, and of the dangerous power of art in a time of war.
Flame Tree Road
Published in 2015
1870s India. In a tiny village where society is ruled by a caste system and women are defined solely by marriage, young Biren Roy dreams of forging a new destiny. When his mother suffers the fate of widowhood--shunned by her loved ones and forced to live in solitary penance--Biren devotes his life to effecting change. Just when his vision for the future begins to look hopeless, he meets Maya, the independent-minded daughter of a local educator, and his soul is reignited.
The Wind is Not a River
Published in 2014
"Following the death of his younger brother in Europe, journalist John Easley is determined to find meaning in his loss. Leaving behind his beloved wife, Helen, he heads north to investigate the Japanese invasion of Alaska's Aleutian Islands, a story censored by the U.S. government. While John is accompanying a crew on a bombing run, his plane is shot down over the island of Attu. He survives only to find himself exposed to a harsh and unforgiving wilderness, known as "the birthplace of winds." There, John must battle the elements, starvation, and his own remorse while evading discovery by the Japanese. Alone at home, Helen struggles with the burden of her husband's disappearance. Caught in extraordinary circumstances, in this new world of the missing, she is forced to reimagine who she is--and what she is capable of doing. Somehow, she must find John and bring him home, a quest that takes her into the farthest reaches of the war, beyond the safety of everything she knows."-- Dust jacket flap.
What We Become
A Novel
Published in 2016
En route from Lisbon to Buenos Aires in 1928, Max and Mecha meet aboard a luxurious transatlantic cruise ship. There Max teaches the stunning stranger and her erudite husband to dance the tango. A steamy affair ignites at sea and continues as the seedy decadence of Buenos Aires envelops the secret lovers. Nice, 1937. Still drawn to one another a decade later, Max and Mecha rekindle their dalliance. In the wake of a perilous mission gone awry, Mecha looks after her charming paramour until a deadly encounter with a Spanish spy forces him to flee. Sorento, 1966. Max once again runs into trouble--and Mecha. She offers him temporary shelter from the KGB agents on his trail, but their undeniable attraction offers only a small glimmer of hope that their paths will ever cross again. Arturo Pérez-Reverte is at his finest here, offering readers a bittersweet, richly rendered portrait of a powerful, forbidden love story that burns brightly over forty years, from the fervor of youth to the dawn of old age.
Twilight Territory
A Novel
Published in 2024
In the Vietnamese fishing village of Phan Thiet in 1942, Tuyet meets and falls in love with Japanese major Yamazaki Takeshi, a wounded veteran with a good heart, but when he risks his life for the Resistance, she and her family are drawn into the conflict, with devastating consequences.
Freeman
A Novel
Published in 2012
"At the end of the Civil War, an escaped slave first returns to his old plantation and then walks across the ravaged South in search of his lost wife"--Provided by the publisher"-- Provided by publisher.
The Missing Pages
A Novel
Published in 2025
"1912: Harry Widener, a promising and passionate book collector, boards the Titanic holding tight to a priceless volume he's just purchased in London. After catastrophe strikes the ship, Harry's last known words are that he must return to his cabin to retrieve his latest treasure. Neither the young man nor the book are ever seen again. Honoring her son's memory, Harry's mother builds the Harry Widener Memorial Library at Harvard to house his extensive book collection and ensure his legacy. Decades later, Violet Hutchins, a Harvard sophomore recovering from her own great loss, is working as a page at the Widener Library. When mysterious things begin happening at the library, Violet wonders if Harry Widener's ghost is trying to communicate with her, seeking Violet to uncover a long-buried secret that the ardent young Harry took with him to the grave." -- Provided by publisher.
Ali and Nino
Published in 1996
Peony in Love
A Novel
Published in 2007
In seventeenth-century China, three women become emotionally involved with "The Peony Pavilion," a famed opera rumored to cause lovesickness and even death.
Bolla
Published in 2021
"From the author of Crossing--a National Book Award finalist--comes a dazzling tale full of fury, tenderness, longing, and lust. April 1995. Arsim is a twenty-two-year-old, recently-married student at the University of Pristina, keeping his head down to gain a university degree in a time and place deeply hostile to Albanians. In a café he meets a young man named Milos, a Serb. Before the day is out, everything has changed for both of them, and within a week two milestones erupt in Arsim's married life: his wife announces her first pregnancy, and he begins a life in secret. After these febrile beginnings, Arsim and Milos's unlikely affair is derailed by the outbreak of war, which sends Arsim's fledgling family abroad and the timid Milos spiraling down a dark path. Years later, deported back to Pristina after a spell in prison, Arsim, alone and hopeless, finds himself in a broken reality that completely questions his past. Entwined with their story is a recreated legend of a demonic serpent, Bolla: an unearthly tale that gives Arsim and Milos a language through which to reflect what they once had. With luminous prose and a delicate eye, Statovci delivers a relentless novel of desire, destruction, intimacy, and the different fronts of war"-- Provided by publisher
Briefly, a Delicious Life
A Novel
Published in 2022
"An unforgettable debut novel from an award-winning writer: a lively, daring ghost story about a dead teen girl who falls in love with a female writer who has no idea she exists. In 1473, fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in childbirth in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly four hundred years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Blanca is still there: a spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she's been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and the townspeople and keeping track of her descendants. Blanca is enchanted the moment she sees George, and the magical novel unfolds as a story of deeply felt, unrequited longing--the impossible love of a teenage ghost for a woman who can't see her and doesn't know she exists. As George and Chopin, who wear their unconventionality, in George's case, literally on their sleeves, find themselves in deepening trouble with the provincial, 19th-century villagers, Blanca watches helplessly and reflects on the circumstances of her own death (which involves an ill-advised love affair with a monk-in-training). Charming, original, and emotionally moving, this is a surprisingly touching story about romantic fixation and a powerful meditation on creativity"-- Provided by publisher.
Young Mungo
A Novel
Published in 2022
"The story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James. Born under different stars--Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic--they should be sworn enemies if they're to be seen as men at all. Their environment is a hyper-masculine and sectarian one, for gangs of young men and the violence they might dole out dominate the Glaswegian estate where they live. And yet against all odds Mungo and James become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. As they fall in love, they dream of finding somewhere they belong, while Mungo works hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his big brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. But the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable. And when several months later Mungo's mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in Western Scotland, together with two strange men whose drunken banter belies murky pasts, he will need to summon all his inner strength and courage to try to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future. Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism and giving full voice to people rarely acknowledged in the literary world, Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the bounds of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much"-- Provided by publisher.
Ruby & Roland
A Novel
Published in 2019
Growing up in early twentieth-century Illinois, Ruby Drake is a happy child. But one winter's night, her beloved parents perish in an accident and suddenly Ruby finds herself penniless and nearly alone in the world. Her new path eventually takes her to Harvester, Minnesota, where she finds work on the farm of the Schoonovers, who soon become a second family to her. Ruby falls in love with Roland, a married neighbor. When Ruby is asked to care for Roland's wife, Ruby is torn between duty and passion.
Above the Salt
Published in 2023
"John Alves, son of a famous Presbyterian martyr on the Portuguese island of Madeira, spends his childhood in jail and in poverty. When he meets Mary Freitas--though the adopted daughter of a master botanist, her true lineage is the subject of dangerous rumor--a spark kindles a lasting bond. But soon their families must confront the rising blood tide of warfare between Catholics and Protestants. Fleeing with only what they can carry, John and Mary are separated and arrive at different times and places in a rapidly growing and changing mid-nineteenth-century Illinois. Years later, John settles into his life as an educator at Jacksonville's nationally renowned school for the deaf, and Mary is a gardener in Springfield for handsome, wealthy Edward Moore. After John and Mary reconnect, the home of rising politician Abraham Lincoln provides a prime setting for their courtship. But conflict looms on the horizon, and John is torn. Should he join the Union army to prove his loyalty to his new country, or should he stay to fight for the chance to make a life with the one he loves? And should Mary accept Edward's marriage proposal since he is a partner in her business of selling the miracle-berry fruit she transported from Madeira, or should she choose her passion for John? Social jealousies and betrayals compound the obstacles unleashed by the Civil War. In poignant and lyrical prose, Katherine Vaz's Above the Salt is a captivating and beautiful tribute to the power of true love and the sacrifices we make to harness it"-- Provided by publisher.
The Two Lives of Sara
Published in 2022
A young mother finds refuge and friendship at a boardinghouse in 1960s Memphis, Tennessee, where family encompasses more than just blood and hidden truths can bury you or set you free.
The Summer Wives
Published in 2018
In Memoriam
Published in 2023
"It's 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, all of whom are safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. They receive weekly dispatches from The Preshutian, their school newspaper, informing them of older classmates killed or wounded in action. Their heroic deaths only make the war more exciting. Gaunt, half-German, is busy fighting his own private battle- an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the gorgeous, rich, charming Ellwood-not having a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return. Meanwhile, Gaunt's German mother and twin sister ask him to enlist as an officer in the British army to protect the family from the anti-German attacks they're already facing. Gaunt signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. The front is horrific, of course, and though Gaunt tries to dissuade Ellwood from joining him on the battlefield, Ellwood soon rushes to join him, fueled by his education in Greek heroics and romantic wartime poetry. Before long, most of their classmates have followed suit. Once in the trenches, the boys become intimately acquainted with the harsh realities of war. Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one other, but their friends are all dying, often in front of them, and no one knows when they'll be next"-- Provided by publisher.
Swearing off Stars
Published in 2017
Amelia Cole--Lia for short--is one of the first women studying abroad at Oxford University in the 1920s. Finally free from her overbearing Brooklyn parents, she finds a welcome sense of independence in British college life. Lia quickly falls for Scarlett Daniels, an aspiring actress and hardheaded protester. Scarlett introduces her to an exciting gender-equality movement with high stakes. But when their secret love clashes with political uprising, their relationship is one of the casualties.