New books by Historical Novel Society members, November 2024
Congrats to our author members on their new releases! If you’ve written a historical novel or nonfiction work published (or to be published) in July 2024 or after, send the following details via our contact form by January 7, 2025: author, title, publisher, release date, and a blurb of one sentence or less. Please shorten your blurbs down to one sentence, as space is limited. Details will appear in the February 2025 issue of HNR. Submissions may be edited.
A tale of industrial espionage, love, and betrayal set against the backdrop of the glittering Gilded Age, Current of Darkness by Robert Brighton (Ashwood Press, Mar. 19) will draw readers in, and hold them under, until its final pages.
Mona Lisa’s Daughter by Belle Ami (Tema Merback, Apr. 15) is a dual-timeline novel that entwines the fates of two remarkable women against the backdrop of the glittering peak of the Renaissance and the darkest depths of World War II.
When Vincent van Gogh commits suicide and his brother Theo falls insane, Sigmund Freud and Julie Forette, the dream collector, pursue the reasons in R. W. Meek’s The Dream Collector, Book II, Sabrine & Vincent van Gogh (Historium Press, Apr. 30).
Set in the Forgotten War of WWII, Janyre Tromp’s Darkness Calls the Tiger (Kregel Publications, May 14) is steeped in true stories and calls forth mountain legends to tell the story of a missionary woman who descends into unrestrained vengeance against the Imperial Japanese army who destroyed the village she loved.
Intrepid heroines, the Welsh sisters Ardath and Gwyn, and their family return to Philadelphia in 1753 to find a raging yellow fever epidemic, the looming French and Indian War, the theft of all their money, and a summons from England for Ardath’s husband James to return and solve a family emergency in Susan Posey’s A Weave of Old and New (Great Rock Press, June 3).
In Murder in Mennefer by A.L. Sirois (Fitzroy Books/Regal House, June 18), set 4650 years ago in ancient Egypt’s pre-pyramid 3rd Dynasty, young Imhotep’s father is killed, landing him in the middle of a conspiracy threatening King Djoser’s throne.
Can they find a missing girl and foil a lethal Jacobite plot, before it’s too late? Pamela Belle’s first novel in more than 25 years, A Parcel of Rogues (Pamela Belle Books, June 21), is a historical mystery/adventure and first in a series set in early Georgian London.
The West in Her Eyes, Janet Hancock’s 2nd novel (Resolute Books, July 12), is a tale of exile, ambition and love in a fictional Russian family, spanning the decade after the 1917 revolution, two continents, and several countries.
A weaver’s daughter with a fascination for colour defies deep-rooted custom and personal tragedy to find a place in Gloucestershire’s 17th century dyeing business in Blue Hawk by Chloe Turner (Deixis Press, July 17).
From the dungeons of the Inquisition to the last days of the Reconquista and the fall of Granada, Colin Falconer’s Converso (Skyview Publishing, July 19) is a sweeping tale of loyalty, betrayal and courage set in medieval Spain.
Ravenous: A Life of Barbara Villiers, Charles II’s Most Infamous Mistress by Andrea Zuvich (Pen & Sword History, July 30/UK, Sept. 30/US) is a biography of Barbara Villiers, a woman so beautiful, so magnetic, and so sexually attractive that she captured the hearts of many in Stuart-era Britain… including that of King Charles II.
A 1940s ghost story set in the California wine country, Joie Lesin‘s The Passenger (The Wild Rose Press, Aug. 21) tells the tale of family connections, life-changing choices, and love—lost and found.
In The Monmouth Manifesto by James Arnett (FriesenPress, Sept. 12), the hanging of a Patriot by a New Jersey Loyalist leads to an outraged Patriot mob, his trial by court martial for murder, General Washington’s worst decision and an international incident—the Asgill Affair—involving America’s essential ally, the King of France.
In Katherine J. Scott‘s From the Ground Up (Glowing Log Books, Sept. 14), Elizabethan stonemason Robert Smythson must rebuild the great house of Longleat and solve a murder in a world where secrets are as deadly as the tools of his trade.
A crumbling castle is under attack while the ailing baron languishes, so the young baroness dons his armor, pretending to be the lord of the land, but as the threats increase, Rosalynde must give into her true nature and become the leader her people need in Lady by LCW Allingham (Mirror World Publishing, Sept. 17).
Beth Kanell‘s The Bitter and the Sweet, Winds of Freedom book III (All Things That Matter Press, Sept. 18), is set in Vermont in 1854: fifteen-year-old Almyra Alexander uncovers a network of home-brewed medicines, the mysterious women making them, counterfeiters, and a threat to the local funding of the Abolition movement.
In Richard R. Gayton‘s Love in Country (Northampton House, Sept. 20), an LGBTQ war action romance, two Army Rangers fall in love during Vietnam War combat, Tet Offensive 1968; based on the award-winning feature film of the same title, released 2023 on Amazon, Tubi and Dekkoo.
Sometimes death is not the end; a story of greed, grave-robbery, and love, Robert Brighton’s The Phantom of Forest Lawn (Ashwood Press, Oct. 8) will keep you guessing until its explosive end.
In Goodbye Bobby by JJ Harrigan (Bronzewood Books, Oct. 8), Charlie Parnell is mourning and helping his stepdaughter deal with the loss of her mother when an ominous visitor arrives at his door with a proposition, one they believe could put an end to the Vietnam War.
Harold Emanuel’s Aliyah – A Jewish Family Saga (Palmetto Publishing, Oct. 8) chronicles the tumultuous journey of 16-year-old Lazar Hermanski and his 12-year-old brother, Mendel, as they survive the 1881 Warsaw Christmas Day pogrom, travel to America, and begin their life on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
In Soldiers (Independently published, Oct. 19), the final book in Sandra Chen’s 2nd Continental Light Dragoons series, the War for Independence hinges on the acquisition of intelligence that would decide America’s fate.
Ireland, 1847: As the nation starves and resentment grows, can Quin and Alannah trust the people living on their land? Their story is told in Juliane Weber’s Amid the Oncoming Storm, Book Three in the Irish Fortune Series (Independently published, Oct. 25).
The Immigrant Queen by Peter Taylor-Gooby (Troubador, Oct. 28) tells the true story of Aspasia, a courtesan in Ancient Athens; despite being despised as a woman and hated as a foreigner she became lover of Pericles, a close friend of Socrates, wrote philosophical dialogues and political speeches and was celebrated throughout Attica for her beauty and wit.
In Garden of Shadows (Fauve Press, Oct. 29), second in the Linnea Wren Mysteries series by Amy Marie Turner and set in the late 19th century, Linnea Wren has arrived in Spain, but her once in a lifetime opportunity to work at the famed Alhambra is complicated when she’s forced to solve a politically complex murder.
The Night of the Wolf by Cassandra Clark (Severn House, Oct. 31), trade pb release of the third in the Broken Kingdom trilogy featuring friar sleuth Rodric Chandler, takes place in 1400; rescued from the heretic fires of Westminster, Brother Chandler is entrusted with Chaucer’s last major work and seeks a place of safety.
It’s 1812 and young Percy Shelley, recently expelled from Oxford University, decides to begin his political life by trying to free the Irish from British tyranny while completing Robert Emmet’s 1803 rebellion; in Kathleen Williams Renk‘s alternate history No Coward Soul Have I (Bedazzled Ink, Nov. 12), Shelley meets Emmet’s colleague, Anne Devlin, who has no reason to trust Shelley or his wife, no matter how much they profess to possess Irish hearts.
Beth Ford‘s second novel Love Between Times (The Wild Rose Press, Nov. 27), a time slip romance, brings together a modern woman rebuilding her life and a medieval knight stuck in the twenty-first century.
In Ashley E. Sweeney’s The Irish Girl (She Writes Press, Dec. 10), feisty and adventurous 13-year-old Mary Agnes Coyne travels alone from Ireland to the U.S. in 1886 to begin a new life in America; an Irish immigrant’s tale.
Lyn Squire’s Fatally Inferior (Level Best Books, Dec. 12) is an extraordinary tale of retribution set against the furore triggered by Darwin’s theory of evolution.
By teaching school in the Utopian Community of Rugby, Tennessee, William and Lizzie heal from their grief, and she and the women bond as lace knitters in Ae Fond Kiss by Joan Donaldson (Black Rose Writing, Jan. 9, 2025).
In Jeri Westerson’s Rebellious Grace: A King’s Fool Mystery (Severn House, Jan. 7, 2025), Henry VIII’s court jester Will Somers turns reluctant inquisitor once again when a grotesque murder within the palace walls is linked to the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion.
Penny Haw’s latest work of historical fiction, Follow Me to Africa (Sourcebooks Landmark, Feb. 2025), is inspired by the life of paleoanthropologist, Mary Leakey.
The Macbeths you’ve never known: Destined to unite Scotland, they first had to survive childhoods as pawns in a dynastic struggle in Upon the Corner of the Moon: A Tale of the Macbeths by Valerie Nieman (Regal House, Mar. 11, 2025).
In Anne Labouisse Dean’s debut novel, Far Side of Revenge (GladEye Press, April 2025), 10th-century Irish prince, Brian Boru, tells how childhood rivalries with older brother, clan king Mahon, threaten his hopes for lasting peace in their kingdom of Munster, won by turning enemies to friends, not corpses.
In The Secret Ranch by Hillary Tiefer (Histria Books, July 29, 2025), a dual-time novel, an 85-year-old woman reflects upon her experience in the Women’s Army Corps and her work as an enemy code interceptor in Petaluma California during World War II.
