New books by Historical Novel Society members, November 2022
We’re proud to share details on our members’ newest book releases. If you’ve written a historical novel or nonfiction work published (or to be published) in August or after, please let us know! Send the following details to compiler Sarah Johnson via our contact form or @readingthepast by January 7, 2023: author, title, publisher, release date, and a blurb of one sentence or less. Space is limited, so concise blurbs are appreciated. Details will appear in February’s magazine. Submissions may be edited.
In Bean Fate by James Arnett (Austin Macauley, Jan.), when a rookie cop is pulled off the case of a Prohibition-era murder in a dusty border town after he probes links between Saskatchewan politicians and Al Capone, Dutch Schultz and the Chicago Mob, he goes rogue.
In G. M. Baker’s The Wistful and the Good, book one of Cuthbert’s People (independently published, Apr. 4), for Elswyth of Twyford, the great Viking raid on Lindisfarne in 793 sees beloved old friends suddenly cast as monstrous enemies, and one wrong step on her part could lead to bloodshed and ruin.
The Navigator’s Daughter by Nancy Cole Silverman (Level Best Books, June 7) is a gripping tale of a daughter’s promise to her father to go back to Hungary, where the remains of her father’s drowned B24 have been located, and to find the people who rescued him.
Miss Glendenning’s Spy (independently published, June 10) by Karen M. Edwards is set in 1810 Gibraltar amid the Peninsular War, where Minerva Glendenning meets and falls in love with spy, Sir Richard Faulconer, who seeks a British traitor and missing plans of Viscount Wellington’s Lines of Torres Vedras fortifications in Portugal.
In A Taste of Betrayal by Julie Bates (Level Best Books, Historia Imprint, Jul. 5), set in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1775, poison fells Faith’s father-in-law, sending her on the path to avenge him before death claims another loved one.
In 1582, with banned books in tow, Martin, an accused seditionist, escapes the pyre and finds safety with Nicolas’s family; however, when Nicolas and his love, Catherine, are caught with the books, all three of them are plunged into a fight for their lives, in From the Drop of Heaven (Sunbury Press, Aug.), which is based on author Juliette Godot’s family tree.
Kathy Reichs meets Sherlock Holmes in Mim Eichmann’s Whatever Happened to Cathy Martin (Living Springs Publishers, Aug. 9), a Gothic thriller set in rural southern Indiana in 1978 that seeks to unravel a deadly tangled web of lies surrounding three former high school friends, one of whom has been missing for over a decade … but which one? And why?
In JULIA PRIMA by Alison Morton (Pulcheria Press, Aug. 23), opening in AD 370 in the Roman frontier province of Noricum, when religious and political reality break the bond between Julia, pagan prince’s daughter, and disgraced tribune Lucius Apulius, she is determined not to lose the only man she will love – but a vengeful presence from the past haunts her perilous journey to find Lucius…
Two seemingly unrelated deaths in the winter of 1913 send society writer Louisa Delafield and former lady’s maid Ellen Malloy on a dangerous hunt for the truth in The Whispering Women, Book 1 of the Delafield & Malloy Investigations Series by Trish MacEnulty (Prism Light Press, Aug. 28).
Niccolò Ridolfi and the Cardinal’s Court: Politics, Patronage and Service in Sixteenth-Century Italy by HNR features editor Lucinda Byatt (Routledge, Aug. 29) examines the Florentine cardinal – nephew and cousin to the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII – and his court in order to understand the extent to which cardinalate courts played a key part in Rome’s resurgence and acted as hubs of knowledge.
A woman fights for her legacy and the lives of the four hundred families who depend upon her ancestors’ vineyard that produces the finest wines in France as the French Revolution erupts, in Her Own Legacy by Debra Borchert (Le Vin Press, Sept. 1).
In Nell: Marshal of Bodie by John Edward Mullen (Murders in Time Press, Sept. 15), a Claymore Award finalist, an 18-year-old young woman with a wooden leg takes the job of Deputy Marshal of a gold-mining town in 1892 California in order to track down her father’s killers.
Based on the historical character who inspired the Jacobean play “The Witch of Edmonton,” The Wonderful Discovery of Elizabeth Sawyer by Jonathan Vischer (The Book Guild, Sept. 28) portrays a woman about to be hanged for witchcraft, who nevertheless might still be able to turn the tables on the men who revile her.
The Swan in Summer by Barbara Lennox (independently published, Sept. 30), volume II of The Trystan Trilogy, a gritty retelling of the Tristan and Isolde legend set in Dark Age Scotland, is an epic journey into the hearts of lovers divided by conflict.
Never underestimate the impact of what we leave behind, the power of life’s dust, as told in Life Dust by Pam Webber (She Writes Press, Oct. 11).
Beneath the Darkening Clouds, Book 2 of Juliane Weber’s Irish Fortune Series (independently published, Oct. 25), is set in 19th-century Ireland as the Great Famine threatens: in a myth-shrouded land on the brink of ruin, an Englishman and his Irish wife are pursued by powerful enemies.
Based on actual events, Lost Souls of Leningrad by Suzanne Parry (She Writes Press, Nov. 8) is the richly layered and intimate story of two remarkable women, separated by years and experience; neither the oppression of Stalin nor the brutality of Hitler can destroy their courage or compassion in this testament to resilience.
In a Far Place (Heywood Press, Nov. 15), by Liz Harris opens with Peter Henderson, the missionaries’ son from The Road Back, returning to London in 1960 after 10 years in Ladakh, where his only companions had been his parents and a local boy to whom they’d taught English.
In Folly Park by Heidi Hackford (She Writes Press, Nov. 15), Temple Preston upends her small Southern town when she discovers that the wife of her ancestor, renowned Confederate general Thomas Temple Smith, gave birth to a biracial baby during the Civil War.
In The Virgins of Venice by Gina Buonaguro (HarperAvenue, Dec. 13), an engrossing novel set in 16th-century Venice, one young noblewoman dares to resist the choices made for her.
From the glamorous stages of Covent Garden and Salzburg to the horrors of Bergen-Belsen, two ordinary women swept up by the tide of war discover an extraordinary friendship—and the courage to save countless lives in The Secret Society of Salzburg by Renee Ryan (Harlequin Love Inspired, Dec. 27).
